Matt x Mello
by Flagfish
Summary: This is a very dirty story. It's written first to be filthy and erotic; second to be suspenseful and clever; and, despite everything, all along the way with love. Also something for the L fans. COMPLETED.
1. Chapter 1

Matt's head is resting on the smooth curve of Mello's thigh, hair cascading softly on the taut black leather, fingers absently tracing the bony condyles at the knee. Mello's other leg is bent against his abdomen, foot resting at the edge of his desk as he works at his laptop, and when Matt begins saying something, he shushes him, because he's busy and he needs to focus right now.

_You taste like leather_, Matt thinks as he runs his tongue against the skin exposed just above the laces of Mello's trousers, and he thinks it tastes nice, and even though he certainly hasn't forgotten what the rest of him tastes like, he thinks he'd like to see again.

Mello doesn't seem much bothered – he continues typing unawares as Matt reaches for the laces with his teeth, the long fingers lightly brushing Matt's hair being the only indication that Mello notices him at all.

Soon the fingers leave and return to the keyboard, wrists moving briskly as Mello types, and he doesn't say a thing when Matt's hand slides around him, pressing the hard member and bringing it against the soft membranes of lips.

But he is hard after all, Matt smiles inwardly, and while Mello doesn't urge him on, he also doesn't ask him to stop, so Matt continues, head resting against the hard black leather at Mello's thigh and tongue gently lapping against him.

He doesn't expect Mello's hand to come so hard against him, suddenly grasping at his scalp with intense pressure and holding him tightly in place. Matt grimaces in pain, breathing hard through his nose as he continues, but Mello's hand doesn't let up, and after several moments of this, he mumbles, "I—I need to stop…"

Nothing.

"Mello."

"…hm?" The other boy is clearly too focused on his work to pay much attention.

"Mello, I need to stop now. I need a smoke"

"Huh—" Mello looks down at Matt squirming in his lap.

"Oh, pff, Matt, you're annoying me."

He releases his hand and brushes it through his hair as he continues staring at the monitor screen, deep in thought.

Matt slowly unravels himself from in-between the legs of the desk and mello's limbs and crawls out, rising to his knees and finally standing and walking over to his jacket thrown against the back of the couch. He fishes out a box of cigarettes and walks out to the porch, taking one out and lighting it slowly.

Mello thinks for a few seconds before continuing to type, one hand absently sliding against the length of the exposed member and teeth biting gently against his lower lip.

After several minutes, Matt returns to the room, pacing aimlessly with the burning end of his cigarette still in his hand. He stops and looks over Mello's shoulder, and the older boy grumbles in agitation,

"You mind? I'm trying to work."

"Yeah, sorry," Matt replies, drawing back and continuing to pace.

Then, a bit later, Matt turns to him again,

"Can I fuck you?"

"Not right now."

"Oh—okay."

He watches Mello continue to stroke himself absently, and suddenly he doesn't really care if his friend will get mad; he grinds the end of his cigarette into the ashtray on the counter and walks toward the desk, then wraps his arms around Mello's abdomen and plucks him from the chair, lifting him off completely.

"Hey! What the—what the fuck, man?! Fucking put me down!"

Mello kicks and screams and lashes out, hands grabbing and pulling at Matt's limbs and his hair, and the younger boy squints and cringes, doing his best to avoid the various forms of abuse Mello attempts to inflict on him.

He kicks the bedroom door open with his boot, walking in quickly and throwing Mello on the bed, and then climbs in after him, holding him down by the wrists and diving down toward his abdomen.

Livid with anger, Mello kicks and curses, writhing furiously below Matt's body, and swears and promises he'll kill Matt after this and no one will ever find the body.

"You're such a pain," Matt grumbles against Mello's exposed stomach, trying uselessly to hold him still, and when again his mouth is on him, Mello bucks up against Matt nearly hard enough to choke him, and now Matt has to hold him down with his knees, too.

He takes him in deep into his throat, suddenly eliciting a tormented cry of frustration, and for a moment Mello actually presses deeper against him, whispering something about what a bastard Matt is.

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

When suddenly Mello feels the unwelcome intrusion of digits against him, he bucks upward in fury, kicking Matt and quite nearly tossing him off, and as they wrestle, hitting and swearing at each other, Matt somehow manages to keep them in, to Mello's absolute annoyance.

He bites whatever's in reach, canines sinking into Matt's shoulder and drawing blood, and Matt curses and murmurs something about how _this kitten has fangs_, but he does not let go, nor does he withdraw his hand, and after he continues moving his fingers in what is clearly a deliberate intent to show dominance, Mello actually begins to grow quiet.

He actually allows this for several seconds before, all at once, he swings hard against the side of Matt's face, finally throwing him off. He looks down to the floor at Matt, who stares up at him, breathing hard and wiping at the side of his mouth, where a small trickle of blood has begun to make its way down to his chin.

Mello glares, eyes piercing murderously from behind disheveled strands of hair, and, as he begins sliding off the bed, he mutters,

"If you're gonna fuck me, bloody do it right."

He steps over the younger boy, standing above him with one foot on either side of his waist, and, reaching down, grabs a handful of hair at the back of Matt's neck and forces him up toward his waist.

"Suck," he says expressionlessly, hard member pointing directly at him.

Because he can't move his head, Matt merely rolls his eyes to look up at Mello, and he can see that there is no argument to be had, so he complies.

Eyes still locked on Mello's, he leans slightly forward as far as he can, tongue reaching out slightly toward him, and Mello watches in silence, hand tight in his hair and hips unmoving.

Matt tries to reach, and he knows Mello is deliberately holding back, and, licking his lips slowly, he lowers his eyes toward the boy's waist and then back up to meet his gaze, and finally Mello lets him have it, shoving against him and pressing his head tightly forward.

Matt allows it, one hand gripping hard at Mello's hip in an attempt to press him closer, the other pressed against his own jeans, feeling himself through the wet denim.

"Good boy," Mello breathes quietly, hand still tight in Matt's hair.

It's with some difficulty that he ultimately manages to withdraw from in-between Matt's lips, forcing his head steady in place as he comes against him, and Matt squints and cringes as the warm liquid drips down his cheeks and his lips and his chin down to Mello's fingers holding his face.

Matt's eyes flutter open and he looks up at the older boy, who, after examining him for a few moments, leans closer, and, thumb still tight against Matt's lip, kisses him slowly.

After Mello withdraws, Matt continues staring at him, licking at the digit at his lips, and, very quietly, whispers,

"_Please_…"

Mello looks down with feigned curiosity.

"Please what?"

Matt's eyes close in frustration. "Please, Mello…"

Mello reaches his fingers to his mouth and licks at them slowly. "Yeah…?"

"Please let me…"

Mello continues looking down expressionlessly, moist fingers at his lips.

"You want me to ride you?"

Bordering on desperation, Matt replies, "Yeah…yes, I want you to ride me…"

"Is that so?"

"…yeah… that's so." He swallows slowly. "…Please…"

Blue eyes stare without expression as Mello considers, licking at his fingers slowly.

"Okay then, he says at last, now moving down to his knees and allowing Matt to pull at his leather pants just enough to fold them to his thighs, and, holding his breath, Matt watches as Mello's hair falls in a soft cascade covering his face, the bony articulations of shoulders and arms shifting as he positions himself against Matt.

He sighs in tremendous relief when at last he's in, eyelashes flickering and mouth slightly agape and fingers trailing against the leather at Mello's legs.

When he opens his eyes long enough to look at Mello, he finds himself curiously fascinated by the red flush at his cheeks and the sweat glistening at his neck, and he watches his own fingers take the zipper at Mello's vest and pull it down. Mello doesn't seem to mind, and after Matt has drawn the zipper, he reaches up to kiss the boy's chest, and suddenly he feels delirious and infatuated and he presses his lips to the sternum and ribs and clavicular ridge.

He bites at the skin very softly, and Mello presses him more tightly against him, forcing Matt to bite hadrer and not letting him go even when it's over.

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

When at last Mello releases him, Matt falls backward against the mattress, limp hand reaching blindly for the nightstand and fishing a cigarette from the box there. He can hear Mello sliding out of his pants and tossing them on the floor, and, holding the lit cigarette between his lips, he reaches for what turns out to be Mello's wrist.

"Cmere."

He tugs hard and Mello nearly trips, but Matt catches him with strength Mello didn't realize he had, and then he pulls him to his chest. Before the boy can curse at him or ask him what the hell he's doing, Matt sinks his teeth into the skin at Mello's thigh, cigarette dangling from in-between his fingers.

"You'll burn me with that, you idiot."

"No, I won't."

Mello's thighs are slick with sweat and the hot aftertaste of sex, and even though Matt's tongue feels very nice against him, Mello grows impatient and starts batting him away.

"I gotta shower and I have a ton of work to finish."

"What are you working on, anyway," Matt raises his head from in-between Mello's legs long enough to ask.

"None of your business."

Matt's tongue runs against his lower lip, hands tight against the boy's thighs.

"This isn't for L again, is it?"

"I said _it's none of your business_."

"You sure work hard for that guy."

Mello punches him again, freeing himself at last, and, rubbing the back of his hand against the tender place on his cheek where he suffered the blow, Matt watches him walk away.

Too bad. Matt liked how Mello tasted, and making him mad was almost worth the abuse. He leans back against the pillow, listening to the gradual creak of the bathroom door and soon after the sound of water running.

He slides off the bed and, resting the cigarette in the ashtray, pulls his shirt over his head.

He sniffs at it; _ew_. _Sweaty._

Tossing it to the floor, he begins making his way out of the room, then pushes the bathroom door open and, his back to the shower, lifts the toilet seat up and unzips.

"There's no shampoo left," comes Mello's voice from behind him.

"Just use soap."

"How often do you wash your hair with soap?"

"Whenever I run out of shampoo."

"That explains a lot."

"Glad I could help," Matt replies merrily, flushing the water and zipping his fly back up.

He turns to Mello and inspects him slowly. "Let me know when you're finished so I can shower too. And wash my hair with soap."

"Freaking wash your hands, man."

Matt raises his eyebrows and looks at the older boy with amusement. Placing his cigarette back between his lips, he leans in and slaps Mello hard on the ass, then promptly runs out of the room.

"_Motherfucker!!_" he can hear Mello yelling, then comes the wet sound of footsteps slapping down the hallway floor and before Matt can get very far, Mello has grabbed him from behind, tripping him and smashing him against the living room carpet and then painfully pulling his arms behind his back.

"Do that again and you're dead."

"I'm sorry," Matt smirks, but really Mello is twisting his arm too painfully for him to keep smiling.

"Are you jealous that I'm doing work for L?"

"What?"

"Are you?"

Matt cringes as Mello twists his arm harder.

"I—ugh—fuck, Mello, stop that…"

"Answer me."

"Ow! _Jesus, _yeah, okay, yes."

Silence. Matt breathes in relief as Mello eases up on his arm, but the boy doesn't release him yet.

"Can't say I blame you," Mello leans in closer, wet hair brushing against Matt's bare shoulder and dripping down, "you know I'd fuck him if I could."

Matt laughs dryly.

"Yeah, I know."

He doesn't like where this is going. It wouldn't be so bad if Mello was doing this merely to annoy him; Matt knows better. It hurts because Mello really means it.

"You know I'd let him do anything he wanted," Mello breathes against the shell of Matt's ear, lips brushing against stray locks of hair.

"Pff," Matt exhales despite himself, "too bad for you he doesn't wanna do anything."

He feels Mello's body tense above him.

"Yeah," his grip loosens on Matt's arm, "too bad."

Then slender digits force their way past his lips and deep into his mouth, and he gasps as Mello runs his tongue slowly against the side of his face. "So I guess all I can do is help him with projects, if I'm lucky enough that he actually wants my help."

Then the fingers slide out, and before Mello releases him, he holds him down tightly, thighs pressed against Matt's hips, and he thrusts hard against him with his fingers, eliciting a tormented cry of surprise.

"You like that?"

Matt exhales slowly.

"Yeah."

Mello thrusts harder. "You want me to fuck you?"

Matt swallows slowly, eyes closing. "You know I do."

Then he feels the wet strands at his shoulder brush back, and the fingers come against his forehead, partly covering his eyes as Mello whispers, "maybe after I finish this project for L."

_To be continued…_


	4. Chapter 4

When Mello was very little, he would sit on L's lap and wrap his arms possessively around him and cover his neck with kisses, and L understood even then that he was smitten, fascinated, infatuated, and with gentle patience he understands this still now.

Still now that Mello stands quietly at the entrance to the room, still now that he stares at him with focused silence filled with curiosity and speculation, still now as L smiles kindly and asks him to sit down while he reads the reports Mello prepared for him.

Now twenty years old, Mello thinks he'd love nothing more than to sit on L's lap and cover him with kisses again, and, for all other intents and purposes hard and dignified, he takes his place across the table instead.

His limbs are wiry leather, his eyes are fire, his very presence is sex and danger, but L knows he is also uninterrupted brilliance and, beneath it all and perhaps only for him to know, he is humble fascination.

L can tell not only that the report is good, but also that Mello truly devoted himself to investigating the topic at hand and that he feels a personal drive to work on the project. And Mello, in turn, thinks that few things are more enjoyable to him than the knowledge that he, himself, is responsible for the thin smile on L's lips, and he would gladly work for days if it caused him to smile again.

When at last L's black eyes roll up from the paper and he smiles and begins asking questions about the topic, Mello all but trembles in excitement, enjoying tremendously the attention and respect, and, sitting cross-legged across the table, he fights for composure as he replies.

"Mello," L says calmly, placing the report on the desk after they have spoken for nearly an hour, "come here."

Mello understands. Leather pants creaking, he uncrosses his legs and paces to the other side of the table.

"Go ahead," the older boy continues, and his eyes are smiling with infinite patience.

Thumbs hooked at the edge of his trousers, Mello gazes down through his hair. He doesn't move for several seconds.

Then, very carefully, he climbs into L's lap, sliding one leg over his knees slowly. Hair sliding over his bare shoulders, he leans in and, eyes closed, wraps his slender arms around the boy's neck.

L's voice is all patience. "What is it that Mello wants?"

Mello is quiet for a long time.

"Ah," L says gently, "I understand."

He turns to face the younger boy, tilting his chin up with a curious finger and inspecting him slowly.

"Would that calm you down, Mello?"

Blue eyes dart to the corner of the room, his face expressionless intensity.

"If L can ask such a thing," he says in a low tone, "then certainly he understands…"

"I see," L is quietly speculative, "but I know that Mello will tell me after all."

Mello swallows quietly. "If that is what L wishes."

More silence. L gazes at Mello's face for several moments before the corners of his mouth rise in a very slight grin.

"Yes," he says calmly, "there's something else here.

_You're right_, Mello thinks, and part of him wishes that L would kiss him, that he would run his hands along his thighs and touch his bare stomach and bite his neck and all the other things he knows L will never do.

_There is something more._

Mello doesn't merely want L to sleep with him. He wants L to take him with cruelty, with violence, he wants him to tie him up with chains and whips and without mercy and to give it to him rough and hard and painful _and he knows that L could do it_, that's the thing, _he knows L has it in him_.

He thinks so, anyway.

He's seen how L ties up suspects. He's seen the icy indifference in his big eyes when, speaking through a microphone, he would politely proceed with interrogation. For all his human compassion and warm regard, L nevertheless seems to Mello somehow patiently sadistic, and Mello wants that.

"Ah…" L says very quietly when at last he understands, "…so that's it."

Mello stares intensely; far be it from him to back down.

"Yeah," he says hoarsely, "that's it."

L's eyes rise up in thought, thumb nudging softly against his lower lip.

"Mello understands that this isn't something I wish to do."

Silence.

"Please," Mello says quietly, and it's the only thing he can think of saying.

"You really want this."

Mello nods.

More silence.

L nods. "I will think it over."

_To be continued…_


	5. Chapter 5

When Mello returns home later that evening, Matt doesn't say a word.

His back turned to the entrance, he continues washing the dishes, cigarette burning forgotten in-between his lips.

Mello doesn't say anything, either, and merely tosses his bag on the couch and proceeds down the hallway toward the bedroom.

_He was with L_.

Matt has nothing personal against L, and, really, he rather likes L. They all did. What's more, he has no qualms about the fact that he'll never be L and will never come close to being L and even that Mello admires L.

Rather, it's the fact that suddenly it feels like it's _him instead of L_ or really that he knows Mello would love to tell him that he's only hanging around because he can't have L.

He doesn't turn around or check up on Mello. He knows Mello is in the bedroom, sprawled on his back with the crumpled end of a chocolate bar between his lips, half naked and eyes closed and wanking—because today he got to be with L.

Whatever.

He puts the last of the dishes away and wipes his hands with a towel, then, brushing his hair back from his eyes, plops down on the sofa and picks up a game controller.

It's not his business anyway. Like Mello said.

And besides. It's not like L has any interest in doing anything like that with Mello in the first place.

Right?

"What's gotten into you?" Mello asks when, a half hour later, he sits next to him on the couch. He's been watching him play for a few minutes, neither exchanging a word until then.

_Not you anytime recently_, Matt thinks of saying, but then decides against it.

"Oh, hi, Mello," he says instead, "and how was your meeting with L?"

"Good."

"Oh, really."

_Like I don't know. Like you haven't been thinking about it and masturbating for the past half hour_.

"He liked my report."

"Well isn't that nice."

Matt doesn't take his eyes off the screen as he reaches for his soda.

"He let me sit in his lap."

Matt promptly spits his soda all over the coffee table.

"Oh, Matt, ew, what the hell…" Mello scoots back, shaking wet drops from his arms.

"He _what!_"

The controller falls from Matt's hands and he flips his gaze to Mello, then he tugs hard at his collar.

"_What the hell did you guys do…?!_"

Mello glares.

"You have two seconds to let the hell go before I kick your ass."

Matt doesn't let go.

"_Answer me!_"

He knows Mello is about to punch him and he doesn't really care—he lets Mello punch him on a semi-regular basis, but this time he's really mad and he actually punches back.

One hand grazing tentatively over his lower lip, Mello rolls his eyes slowly to stare at Matt in disbelief. He looks down at the blood on his knuckles, then back up at Matt, who is staring back, breathing hard.

Mello rises to his feet slowly, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist, then, glaring down, cracks his neck and swallows hard.

Matt knows what's coming next. Mello bites his lip and swings hard, but Matt blocks him, and reaching for the boy's throat, he slams him against the wall and then grasps his wrists tightly.

"Not tonight, Mello," he hisses, "you had this coming for a long time."

He leans in and kisses him hard, violently, and Mello writhes in defiance, finally kicking Matt hard in the groin with his knee.

His chest heaves as he watches Matt curl in pain, but the boy doesn't let go of his wrists all the while, and, glaring through his hair, Matt presses Mello against the wall more tightly.

"You'll never have him," he hisses with absolute spite, "do you understand? _Never_."

Mello doesn't flinch.

"It's none of your—"

"_Fuck you_," Matt spits, curling his lip, "_like hell it isn't_."

Mello kicks him and Matt nearly loses his balance, but soon he recovers, slamming Mello painfully with his face to the wall.

"Now you listen good, you little bastard," he whispers, and his breath is hot with anger and the smell of cigarettes, "even if he was so petty as to knowingly come between us, L has no interest in a little kid like you. That's puppy love. That's bullshit."

Mello grits his teeth. He doesn't fight back. He merely turns his head just enough that Matt can see his canines glowing through his twisted smile.

"There is no _us_, Matt," he laughs dryly.

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 6

Matt hangs his head, lips stretching into a bitter grin. His hands are still tight against Mello's wrists.

"Is that how you wanna play it," he murmurs, "very well, then."

He presses harder, smashing Mello tightly against the wall.

"So tell me, boss," he whispers, voice hoarse with the beginning of tears, "what is it exactly that you want so badly from L?"

Mello is deliberately silent, and his silence is maddening.

"You want him to tie you up? Is that it?"

He takes both of Mello's wrists in one hand, gripping hard, and reaches around to his face with the other.

The blood is cold and clumping on the boy's lip, his chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, and Matt thrusts his fingers into Mello's mouth.

"You want him to give it to you rough, don't you," he whispers, voice breaking, "and make you cry and bleed and choke, and—" he swallows, pressing his lips together as the tears begin running down his face, "that's it, isn't it," he thrusts his fingers deeper into Mello's mouth, "God damn it, Mello, you're sick."

Mello doesn't resist. Matt can't see his face, but his breath is hot and steady against his fingers, wrists limp in his hand.

"But L won't do it, will he," Matt murmurs, gritting his teeth, "so you'll just have to keep fantasizing about it and touching yourself."

He presses his fingers down against Mello's teeth, crying freely now.

"Won't you."

He withdraws his hand from Mello's mouth and tugs hard at the back edge of his pants, pulling them down with one fast motion, and then runs the moist digits along the curve of his back.

Mello cries out when the fingers go in, harsh and direct and without mercy, and Matt pushes them as far in as he can, biting the shell of Mello's ear with forlorn intensity.

"Tell me what you did with him," he whispers hoarsely, cheeks wet with tears, "tell me, you fucking bastard, God, _I swear, Mello, I'll never forgive you_."

Mello's neck is stretched forward, his forehead pressed against the wall and his lips parted, and no matter how hard Matt pushes in, he says nothing.

Really, they hadn't done anything. L merely let him sit in his lap and hold him, but that's beside the point, because if L had let him do more, Mello would have done more. And even if L decides to let him do more (he said he'll _think about it_), above anything it's because he knows how much Mello is suffering because he wants it so much.

He can't help it.

He's wanted L with maddening jealousy as far back as he can remember. It isn't something he can change and it certainly isn't something he's going to lie to Matt about.

And no matter how hard Matt hits him or how desperately he cries as he thrusts his fingers into him, he's not going to make him want it any less.

Matt seems to understand this, and it hurts—it really hurts. One hand still tight against Mello's wrists, he pulls his fingers out and nudges the boy's thighs apart with his knee, then enters him slowly, hair hanging over his eyes and tears glistening at the edge of his lip, and he bites down, burying his face in Mello's hair.

He inhales, crying softly into the long strands, his hands shaking against the wrists beneath and hips moving slowly against him. Mello says nothing – in fact, he seems icy and frozen and maddeningly unresponsive, his soft hiss of exhalation the only sign that he's there at all.

_What do I do?_

_What do I do?_

When it's over, Matt doesn't let go. He still holds Mello tightly against the wall, eyes dry and sore with the bitter remains of tears, and no matter how tightly he grasps the older boy, he still feels desperate and utterly alone.

_You're mine, God damn it…!_

_I love you! I love you!_

--

To be continued...


	7. Chapter 7

Matt left.

Mello knows before he opens his eyes the next morning.

He knew before he fell asleep the night before, and before the sex was over, and really before the sex started.

He pulls himself up to a sitting position, rubbing his right eye with the bent point of his wrist and brushing hair back from his face, and then he looks around the room and blinks slowly.

His head hurts.

It's hot this morning, and Mello detangles his naked legs from between the cocoon of sheets that has managed to wrap itself around him somehow during the night.

What time is it?

And where the hell is Matt?

He sits down at the kitchen table, fingers reaching for an old newspaper that lies there and he flips through it sleepily, waiting for his morning wood to go away so he can pee.

He still has a lot of work to do.

There is dust floating in the sunlight coming in through a crack in the blinds, and Mello squints as he looks through it, yawning softly and scratching the back of his head and wondering why Matt had to get so freaking emotional about stupid shit.

He left a pack of cigarettes lying on the table with a few cigarettes still in it, and after staring at it for a few seconds, Mello reaches for the box, fingering the cardboard edge and the foamy cylinders inside.

He pulls one out and sniffs at it, and it smells like Matt, and Mello wonders why Matt has to smoke these nasty things. His eyes flutter shut and he leans back in his chair, thinking how usually around this time of morning, Matt is sitting there at the table with him, bath towel wrapped around his abdomen and damp hair messy and one of these disgusting cigarettes hanging between his lips as he reads the paper.

It's not helping his morning wood.

He leans back in his chair, tentatively placing the cigarette in his mouth and brushing his hair away from his face.

_God damn it, Matt. So I wanna screw L. You've known that for years._

He sighs.

_It's not like that means I don't like you. _

"Since when has this been such an issue, anyway?" he says to the empty room, and then adds, "and since when are we an _us_?"

"…and it's not like he'll even let me!"

_And if he does, do you actually expect me to decline?_

_Wow – could it actually be possible that L will let me—_

Mello gives up on his morning wood. He takes the cigarette from his lips and tosses it on the table, then leaves for the shower.

XXX

The FBI listens to L. And the CIA listens to L, and really the major investigative organizations of most leading nations listen to L.

And only select agents from each organization have actually spoken directly with L, and fewer still have actually met in person with L.

And also Mello met with L.

After long hours of meeting and investigation and negotiation and secret, secret stuff that even prodigious little kids like Mello can't possibly understand (but would give the proverbial left testicle to sit in on) L finally excuses himself because he promised Mello he'd meet with him that evening.

"Watari, please inform Dr. Müller and Dr. Weinberg of the meeting's outcome and forthcoming objectives," he says as he climbs out of his chair, "we'll finish this later tonight."

He leaves the room to find Mello already waiting for him in the hall, hands hooked in his pockets and eyes looking up from behind his hair.

"We finished late tonight, I'm sorry," L says as he motions for Mello to follow him down the hallway.

"That's okay," Mello lies, "I just got here."

_An hour ago_.

"Is that so," L doesn't believe him, "I'm glad to hear that. Oh – and here," he says, handing Mello a Snickers bar, "it's a little melted but I thought you'd like one."

"Hey, cool, thanks," Mello smiles, fingers automatically reaching to unwrap it.

"So then, what has Mello decided?"

They turn the corner to walk into a different office, and L motions for Mello to sit down.

Mello looks up from the Snickers bar.

"Huh? It's your decision. You already know what I think."

L smiles. "Mello doesn't usually conduct business for work in the evening, does he?"

Mello swallows, surprised.

"What are-?"

"Your lower lip. That's a domestic fight."

Blue eyes go big. L is good.

"He must have been pretty mad if he actually hit you."

Mello stares in astonishment, not sure what to say in response.

"You got that between our meeting yesterday and sometime later that night, judging by the progress of that wound."

"He's just being stupid," Mello says quietly, staring at the corner of the desk.

"Ah, but this is about you now," L says, big eyes staring through long strands of hair, "isn't it?"

"I—"

"So please tell me, Mello, what you have decided."

Silence.

"I thought as much," L says quietly after several moments.

He smiles at Mello, rising from his chair. "Mello is conflicted now."

_I'm not conflicted, I wanna fuck you_, Mello thinks, but he knows better than to doubt L.

"You understand this isn't something I really deal with very often," L continues, "and really I'm not sure what to think. I have some time on Thursday, why don't the two of you come by then.

"He left, I dunno where he went of when he's coming back."

"He'll be back tonight, I'm sure of it."

XXX

Matt returns later that night to find Mello mostly naked and partly asleep on the couch.

Mello rises to his elbows, staring at Matt in surprise, and while he'd never admit this to himself, relief.

"I—bought shampoo," Matt says quietly. "…and conditioner."

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 8

Mello let Matt wash his hair.

They don't speak very much because both of them are tired and each of them is wary of agitating the other, and also because when Mello asked Matt where the hell he's been all day, very softly Matt replied that it was none of Mello's business.

Matt thinks that Mello looks very beautiful naked, and while he doesn't say anything, he really tries to be very gentle with the shampoo because Mello has very long hair and Matt doesn't really know what to do with very long hair and he doesn't want to get it knotted and also he doesn't want to get the shampoo in Mello's eyes.

He's watched Mello wash his hair before, and actually he has inadvertently paid a great deal of attention to the way Mello washed his hair before, but for some reason he can't remember if there was anything special about how he did it compared with how Matt washed his own hair, and now that he tries to remember it seems all he can think of is how pretty Mello looked while he was doing it and how sexy his long fingers looked in his hair and how much he liked his naked, bony shoulders.

"You don't have to be so careful," Mello says quietly, and Matt thinks he almost sounds self-conscious, and if he could see Mello's face he would probably smile and think he looked very charming then because he's actually blushing.

"Sorry," Matt hears himself murmur. He scratches the back of his neck and gets it a little foamy, but he doesn't really know how to change what he's doing so he keeps doing it carefully, sitting fully-clothed at the edge of the tub behind Mello with the legs of his jeans rolled up to his knees and his bare feet in the water.

"Um, okay," he says softly, "now—uh—now you have to lean back, and…"

"This okay?" Mello asks and leans his head back slowly, closing his eyes, and, wiping his hands against the sides of his jeans, Matt reaches for the showerhead and turns the water on just a little to check the temperature.

"Yeah—good, just a moment—" he mumbles, waiting for it to get warm enough, and then, looking back at Mello, tries to figure out how to go about it.

"Okay, so—" he slides his hand under Mello's hair and brings the showerhead closer, he thinks that's how he saw them do it on that show _Swan_, and suddenly he realizes he's smiling because suddenly he realizes he likes doing that, and actually it was kind of fun and maybe Mello will let him do it again sometime later.

Mello actually has little patience for how long this is taking, but he likes Matt and he doesn't want him to go away like that again so he puts up with it, and also he understands that Matt is really trying and really L made him feel bad about the whole thing.

Almost.

He didn't need to tell L that this wasn't a game and that it wasn't out of cruelty – L understands even better than Mello, himself, that Mello can't just will his feelings away.

L is generally good at putting his feelings aside; Mello isn't. But really, L is good at a lot of things, and while Mello has definitely tried to put his feelings aside, in his case this wasn't manifested so much as frigid cordiality but rather more in the form of _I'm-this-close-to-killing-everything_ intensity.

When Matt has finished, he reaches for a towel and places it gently around Mello's head, trying hard to remember what else he saw them do on _Swan_, but then Mello takes the towel and rubs his hair vigorously, and Matt sort of forgets what he was going to do or say when his friend rises to his feet and steps out of the tub, and, wet and dripping, reaches for another towel to dry himself off.

There are scratches along his waist, and Matt knows he put them there, and he's not sad about that but he is sad that Mello deserved them.

"You coming?" Mello asks after he's wrapped the towel around his waist and brushing his wet hair, begins walking toward the door.

"Yeah," Matt replies, standing up and shaking the water from his feet before stepping out to the rug.

When he reaches for a cigarette, he notices that one of them is kind of bent and a bit wrinkled, and suddenly it dawns on him that Mello must have put it in his mouth, and, astonished, he gazes at it for a few seconds, and then stuffs it back in his pocket.

XXX

"Do you know why we're here?"

L looks up from his tea.

Matt doesn't raise his eyes. He's not sure that he likes that they're there at all. But it's better than Mello going there alone.

He plays with fray strands at the sleeve of his shirt, hair falling over his eyes.

"Yeah," he says very quietly.

"Mello, you beat him up pretty bad," L says, eyes unblinking.

He said it like it was something new or like Matt somehow didn't ask for it, but Mello doesn't dare argue with L, so he says nothing.

L tilts Matt's chin up with the bent knuckle of his index finger and brushes the hair away from his forehead, and Matt looks aside as the big eyes inspect the bruise there.

"There's no simple way to solve this," L adds, climbing back onto the sofa, "and while I suspected something like this would happen, it's unusual for me to be directly involved."

He puts his cup back on the table and turns his head back to them.

"I've thought about this," he says, "and I still haven't decided if I'm going to do what Mello asked."

Mello looks up, eyes narrowing.

"But," L continues, "I'm going to show Matt how to do it."

"How to do what?" Matt asks inadvertently, then immediately wishes he didn't.

Mello sighs and leans his head back, staring up at the ceiling. He snickers. "All the whole _blah, blah, blah, you want him to tie you up and make you bleed and this and that and Mello you're so sick_…"

Matt stares at Mello, then at L.

It's different if he's the one who gets to do it.

"…oh."

_To be continued…_


	9. Chapter 9

"I know Mello has some experience with this," L says matter-of-factly, "and I assume you can get out of some of the less intricate systems."

It's not really set up the way Mello imagined, because he imagined a shadowy dungeon with wet stone slabs and rats and decay but they were in the same office building with office plants and a gray carpet and big windows, but supposedly this is where they did the interrogation and this is where they tied up the suspects when they tied up the suspects and Mello loved L from the bottom of his heart for letting them see it.

"And I assume there's a great deal that Mello can handle, but I understand that what you want is deliberately something you can't handle, is that right?"

Mello nods, and then he gasps in surprise because then L's left hand is on the collar of his vest and his right hand unzips his top in about two seconds like it was the most casual thing in the world, and as he walks behind him and begins pulling the thing off, he says, deep in thought, "okay, I have an idea of how we're gonna do this. If it does become too much, you have to say so. Do you understand?"

Matt and Mello stare in astonishment as he places Mello's vest on the desk, "we've had people in critical condition."

"I—understand," Mello says when at last he finds his voice.

"Matt," L says as he begins walking into the nearby room, "I'm going to assume that you can handle this."

Sure. Yeah. They've handled weapons and danger and that sort of thing before.

Matt draws on his cigarette slowly.

But this was different. He's always done dangerous stuff to _help_ Mello. But this is what Mello actually _wants_, isn't it? And if Matt wasn't there, it could only be worse.

So he _has_ to be there.

L walks back in, carrying what looks like a large medical kit, and he closes the door.

"Yeah, I can—" Matt begins answering, but then nearly chokes on his cigarette because now L is reaching for the laces at Mello's trousers, and while that alone is enough material for Mello to wank about for three consecutive weeks, neither of them expected it to happen so casually, and, before he thinks of anything else to say, Matt quickly walks over to L and draws on his shoulder,

"You know he doesn't wear underwear," he sputters, blushing immediately.

L looks up.

"Matt," he says quietly, "you do realize he has to be naked for this. Do you understand what we're going to do?"

Stunned, Matt stares back speechlessly, cigarette burning forgotten in-between his fingers.

His first thought when finally he is able to think again is how much Mello is probably getting off on this. Matt can't take his eyes off the other boy's when L resumes untying the laces and then grasps hard at the edges and pulls down.

Mello turns his gaze to L and watches in quiet fascination as he pulls at the black trousers, and he remembers to move only when L asks him to lift his legs so he could pull them off.

"I'm going to assume you can handle this, Matt," L says calmly, "please come here."

"O—okay," Matt squeaks, putting out his cigarette with shaking fingers, and then he kicks himself mentally because he realizes he was about to ask L please not to hurt his friend.

He can't take his eyes off Mello, who is standing across from them naked as the day he was born and astoundingly beautiful and unashamedly aroused.

"From here on out, you'll be doing this," L says to Matt as he unclasps the briefcase he brought in, "and I'll be instructing you."

Matt nods, stepping behind L and staring curiously over his shoulder. He realizes suddenly that L is much thinner than both of them, and that, like Mello, he appears deceptively fragile because he's so thin. He seems thoughtfully composed as his slender hands work at unfurling the intricate binds and folds of material with years of experience, and suddenly, to his astonishment, Matt realizes that for the first time he can understand Mello's fascination with L.

After several minutes, the older boy turns around and holds out an elaborate brace comprised of a number of modular leather and metal parts, and motions for Matt to take it.

"This is better than handcuffs," he explains as Matt takes it and tries to hold it the way L did, "because your suspect can't move their arms."

He walks over to Mello and, placing his hands on his shoulders, asks him to turn around, and when he does, L gathers the boy's hair and slides it away from his neck.

"It goes on from the front," he explains to Matt, who, marveling at how heavy the thing is, walks after L obediently.

"Here – like this," L continues, taking the left side of the brace and beginning to thread Mello's arm through it, "you do the other side."

Matt looks up at Mello, who watches them with a great deal of amusement, and suddenly Matt smirks to himself because he realizes how frustrated his friend is about to get because he's probably never been so turned on, but he won't be able to touch himself.

Neither of them says anything, but Matt knows Mello is liking this. The bastard.

"Look here," L says, motioning for Matt to come closer, "it fastens in several places, like this."

There's a series of latches and bolts and Matt understands that Mello really isn't getting out of this one. He takes the binds from L's hands and follows his instructions to fasten them, and then he asks Mello if he's doing okay, and Mello nods, yellow hair bouncing.

Matt understands why they had to take off his clothes first – there would be no way to do that after they finished tying him up.

"This one's for the abdomen," L continues, and as he unfurls the second brace and begins explaining to Matt how it goes on, Mello understands that this is far from the first time L has instructed someone on how to use these things, and he wouldn't be surprised if L has put together some of the binds, himself.

And also, Mello thinks suddenly, there's something unexpectedly interesting and curiously arousing about watching Matt working with L like that.

_To be continued…_


	10. Chapter 10

For the first half hour that they work at binding Mello, Matt is starting to think it's kind of fun. It's fun because it's new and interesting and because this is the real deal and L really seems to know what he's doing, to the point that Matt really comes to understand that perhaps Mello knew what he was talking about when first he asked this specifically from L.

And also, it's fun because Mello really wanted it, and his naked body is beautiful and warm under the binds and Matt likes touching him while he's fastening them on.

Mello is strangely quiet and well-behaved all throughout, and Matt knows it's because he's fascinated and infinitely amused and, for once, content and consoled, and because he trusts that L will not let him down in this regard.

But as time continues to pass and they bring out layer after layer of binds and straps and chains, Matt begins to wonder why in the world this much stuff is necessary and part of him actually begins to fear that they've gotten in over their heads.

It's gone beyond cutely kinky and into disturbingly realistic as Matt slowly begins to grasp that, one, this really is the real deal, and, two, _this_ is what Mello wanted.

He's not messing around.

He thinks this kind of equipment is enough to scare the living crap out of any suspect before the cops even began to—

"Hey, L," Matt says quietly, looking up from his hands' work and blinking slowly.

"Yeah?"

"Uh—we're not—that is—he—"

"We're not what?"

Matt coughs and tries again. "What—what kind of stuff are we…that is…what are we gonna do to him?"

"Not we. You."

"Right, right…uh…what…um…"

L smiles kindly, his hand on Matt's shoulder.

"Mello isn't a real suspect," he says, looking into Matt's eyes, "and even though he wants something very bad, we're not going to do our worst."

"I can—" Mello starts, but then stops himself because he realizes he's arguing with L, but the older boy regards him with serious composure.

"Mello," he says, coming to stare directly at him, "no matter how much you like pain, you won't like electric burns and trauma."

"Oh my God," Matt whispers, "you guys do electric burns…?"

Mello laughs behind his hair. "Tell Matt what kind of criminals you've had here."

But L merely smiles sadly.

"Please don't bother yourselves with that," he says, "tonight we do this with love and not with any real intent to harm."

He turns to face Matt. "And, regardless," he smiles, "electric burns aren't something we do very often."

Matt nods silently, and he realizes that, actually, this isn't what's bothering him. There was something very unsetting about the way L spoke just then, something eerily human that was almost raw emotion and despair, and, for the next several minutes, he can't take his eyes off the older boy, wondering just who exactly he was and what exactly happened at some point and what sort of bleeding scars he's so good at distancing himself from.

When at last they finish with the braces and straps, there comes a series of ropes and chains and L explains to Matt that usually they don't do it like that and that usually they tie the suspect to a chair or a board instead, and when Matt begins to ask why they're doing that part differently, L raises his eyebrows and smiles, ruffling Matt's hair and taking the cigarette from his lips.

"I think you'll understand," he says, staring at the burning stub and then putting it out.

He begins walking out of the room, explaining that there's something else he's going to bring, and when he closes the door, Matt all but runs up to Mello, who is naked and bound and tied with long chains stretching laterally toward the walls and the ceiling and also the floor, and he stares at him for several seconds before throwing his arms around him and burying his head at the crook of his neck.

"What the hell is wrong with you," Mello asks, agitated, and Matt thinks he's going to start crying again, and his only consolation about Mello being so tightly secured is that he knows that otherwise he'd probably push him off or hit him, so Matt actually does start crying.

"I'm sorry, boss," he murmurs, tightening his grip around Mello's waist, "this is really creeping me out, and—"

"Jesus Christ, Matt," Mello hisses, "you really are a pussy. He hasn't even done anything yet!"

"They do electric burns!"

"L works with the FBI and stuff, Matt!"

"I don't like that you're all…all…like that…" Matt rolls his eyes to stare at all the chains and straps and God knows what else.

"Look, Matt," Mello hisses, "L asked you to be here because if he did this to me alone, you'd totally freak out. I mean—I mean, probably more than you're already freaking out, I guess…"

"I thought he was gonna tie you up to a bed and whip you or something! But this—"

Mello rolls his eyes, and because he can't move, he merely leans his head forward and kisses Matt, because maybe that would calm him the fuck down.

It sort of does, and so Mello continues, smiling against Matt's lips and whispering,

"Cmere."

When L walks back in, they've been making out for several minutes, and he patiently waits for them to stop before speaking again.

"Please come here for a moment, Matt," L says, unclasping a second briefcase, and, detangling himself from Mello, Matt joins him at the desk.

"So like I said – no electrocution, and also no neurotoxins and no burns and nothing like that."

He raises his eyes to Matt's face.

"We don't typically tie our suspects to a bed and whip them," he smiles ever-so-slightly, "but if it's of any comfort to you—"

He opens the briefcase and pulls out what does in fact look like a whip, and Matt actually laughs.

"Are you saying you've actually used this before?"

L smiles.

"Not on suspects, no."

And before Matt can merrily respond to what that sounded like it implied, "or on anyone under any circumstance."

His face grows a bit more serious when he opens the second compartment.

"These are sterile sharps," he says, "and this sort of thing we have used before." He explains to Matt how they are to be used and warns him that the goal is not to cut deep or to injure and that, as with burns, one must be very careful as not to cause infection and, after watching Matt's expression for a few moments, at last he adds that maybe he should just stick to the whip and not try using the sharps at all.

Mello watches with quiet amusement. He can still taste Matt on his lips and his cheeks are moist and he can't rub at them, and also he can't touch himself and he can't even really turn his head around very far and so he continues watching L and Matt speaking to each other and Matt seeming nervous and freaked out and L trying to console him and Matt trying as politely as he can to tell L that he doesn't want to do _this _to Mello and he doesn't want to do _that_ to Mello and L trying to explain to Matt that they're not really going to do anything serious and finally Mello sighs and calls out,

"Just fucking kiss already."

Very slowly, both of them turn their heads in his direction, L with one hand on the whip and one hand on Matt's shoulder, and Matt with his eyes big and confused and fingers running through his hair.

Neither of them speaks for a long time, and, staring back at Mello, Matt doesn't flinch when he feels L's hand on his cheek, and for the first few moments, he doesn't take his eyes off Mello, until finally he feels his eyelashes fluttering shut and begins kissing back.

_To be continued…_


	11. Chapter 11

Matt sighs very softly when L's lips trace the side of his neck, and it's a sigh of relief and delicate despair, and he finds himself hanging on with strange vulnerability until, ghosting against his lips, he feels L's mouth moving as he speaks with quiet composure,

"Come on."

He reaches after L when the boy withdraws, and then he opens his eyes, rubbing at his neck and looking at Mello for approval.

Mello stares expressionlessly at L walking toward him and then at Matt, eyes glistening and lips slightly parted, and he's all but forgotten that the reason they're there in the first place is to do stuff to _him_, and it's all he can do to hold back from asking them why the hell they stopped and could they please do it again and _what was it like, Matt, what was it like?_

But then it gets better.

"So now Matt should be okay with this," L says, his back turned to the redhead, and before Matt can ask what he's talking about, he notices that L is standing very close to Mello, and Mello is actually tilting his head away and squeezing his eyes shut and all but clenching his teeth and, with pure helplessness, he cries to Matt,

"Oh my God, Oh, Oh _damn it,_ _Fuck, Matt, please tell him you're okay with this…!_"

And Matt sees that L's hand is sliding behind Mello's ear and into his hair, and now they are both looking at Matt for approval, L ever so calmly and Mello with absolute desperation, the delicate lines of ribs pressing hard against the skin at his chest as he breathes and trying uselessly to back away.

And because Matt can't bring himself to answer at all, L does not kiss Mello, but merely turns his head back and gazes at him calmly. Mello stares back, stunned and miserable and almost painfully aroused, and his breath comes rapid and hoarse as he stares at L's hand brushing softly against his cheek, lovingly, and as the white fingers brush the hair away from his face, he murmurs very quietly,

"Light-kun was almost exactly your age then."

And through nearly unbearable frustration, Mello swallows hard, and then hears himself whisper,

"Who...?"

L's eyes flutter shut and he smiles, his slender thumb brushing against Mello's temple with gentleness the boy has never known before, and this is more torture than Mello would ever feel from ropes and binds and whips and sterile sharps.

Matt continues to stare, moving his gaze from Mello to L and back, and, almost inaudibly, he mumbles,

"Oh, hell no…"

Mello flips his eyes to Matt, and he's almost in tears from frustration, and, with pure torment, he all but begs Matt to please tell him what the hell is going on.

Matt swallows hard, fighting for composure, and raises his head to face Mello very slowly.

"Light Yagami," he says, throat dry and voice hoarse, "That was Kira."

Mello stares at Matt for several seconds, slowly digesting the full weight of his words. Then his eyes move to look at L, whose face is lined with distant serenity.

"That's right," he says at last, and then he begins withdrawing, but, almost in a panic, Mello calls to him,

"L, wait—!"

The older boy stops, and, breathing hard, Mello gazes back, for the first time that night truly wishing he wasn't bound.

After several moments of silence, Mello regains some composure, and, trembling, he continues,

"Y—you and Kira…?"

Dark eyes look up through long, calm eyelashes, and, hands in his pockets, L smiles very sadly.

Mello tilts his head in astonishment.

"Kira was that young?"

"He was eighteen. No—seventeen."

And suddenly, Mello finds that more than anything he would like to know what this whole thing was about, who Kira really was and what he was like and what exactly happened, because he was absolutely fascinated that, somewhere, at some point, there was a person who managed to affect L this much.

"What—was he like?"

L thinks for a long time. He doesn't dare touch Mello again.

"Very sharp," he says softly, "Political. Manipulative. Seductive."

"Wow," Mello replies quietly, because he's never heard L speak of someone this way, and the notion that he was that far involved with Kira had never before crossed his mind.

"Was—was he anything like me?" he asks suddenly.

L looks up and actually laughs. "That's a strange thing of Mello to ask."

All but forgetting that Matt is there, Mello gazes back, his eyes searching L's face, and, with genuine compassion, he murmurs,

"I don't mind if you pretend I'm him, L, that's—I mean, that's _totally okay by me_."

_To be continued…_


	12. Chapter 12

"Mello would like that, wouldn't he," comes L's quiet voice, all speculation and composure.

He smiles, eyes closed and lips parted, _yes, of course he would like that_, and with a strange mixture of admiration and envy he thinks he would have liked to meet Kira, just to know what kind of person actually made a suitable rival for L.

"Ah yes, Matt," L continues, not taking his eyes off Mello, "there is one more thing we haven't put on."

It's something else they obviously don't use on suspects and something else he brings out because, even though it's cheesy, he thinks it would be less intimidating and more amusing to Matt, and it comes around Mello's neck in a simple loop and clasps in the front and Mello is quietly okay with it while L is doing it and starts being somewhat less okay with it when it hooks to a leash and L hands it to Matt.

When he finishes staring cluelessly and begins understanding, Matt promptly switches to trying to make Mello understand that this is something he had nothing to do with and is really quite uncomfortable with and that yes, he knows it's really the other way around and _oh God, please don't hurt me when you're untied_.

"He can't hurt you, Matt," L says quietly, as if reading his thoughts, "Isn't that right, Mello?"

Matt's eyes roll nervously toward L, his fingers cold and sweaty on the leash.

The great L really is quite thin and delicate, bony articulations protruding in elegant lines under innocent white skin, voice soft and low and limbs long and slender, and he _knows_ he is vulnerable—with calm acceptance he understands both the extent of his capacity for deduction and the gnawing reality of limitation, and this is curiously fascinating to Matt, who, very slowly, feels the leash slip out from in-between his fingers and begins instead to reach for the still-open briefcase.

The sterile sharps.

"He can hurt me pretty bad when he gets loose," Matt replies, and, standing behind L, he can feel the cool sway of black hair against his cheek as he reaches his arm around the bony ribcage and, thin blade between his thumb and forefinger, runs a gentle line from the collar down, white cloth coming apart in a soft tear.

Mello stares in bewilderment, wondering when L will tell him to stop it and whether to be infuriated or aroused.

L says nothing, but he breathes in surprise when, hand tight around him, Matt brings the blade just under the jugular notch and, staring at Mello, murmurs,

"You do understand what kind of relationship he had with Kira, don't you?"

Mello stares at Matt in panic, then at L, and he truly does not understand how L can put up with this, and really he'd much rather have that sort of thing inflicted upon himself than have to watch the precious L—

"I don't think that Mello really wants to play Kira,"

L says quietly, torn shirt hanging loose against his thin shoulders and ribs protruding slightly through the soft flesh beneath. His black hair falls in a gentle cascade against him, all silence and childlike innocence, and when the blade has really gone so far as to cut and down come the first dark beads of blood, at last Mello begins to feel afraid, and, tears lining his eyes, he whispers for Matt to please stop.

Matt's eyes dart to gaze at L, who looks back in silent approval, and so, looking back at Mello, Matt leans his head closer to the slender curve at L's neck and, very slowly, runs his tongue along the white skin.

"No," he says with more courage than he has ever shown toward Mello, "I don't think he does."

Staring directly at the blonde, he closes his lips on the side of L's neck and bites very softly, and, startled, L closes his eyes and emits a very quiet gasp that sends shivers down Mello's spine.

Then Matt's long fingers claw at the frayed edges of L's torn shirt and draw them laterally, pulling them away, and they are both astonished by just how thin the older boy is and how strange it is that this fragile waif really has the unwavering cooperation of several world leaders.

Is this really the great L, lank and vulnerable and heart-wrenchingly childlike, dark eyelashes fluttering shut over soft black eyes and naked white limbs falling gracefully into Matt's arms in a final act of surrender; is this really the secret international detective responsible for almost single-handedly finding the mass murderer Kira and putting him to justice, and is he really a full decade older than they are?

Staring at Mello through diffuse strands of hair, Matt continues kissing L's neck, arms tight against the white abdomen, and L's hands are actually urging him on, long digits tracing the bony ridge at his mandible, and when at last the black eyes open, he looks directly at the blonde, saying nothing as he brings Matt's fingers to his lips.

Mello gazes back, transfixed and desperate and hopelessly defeated, and he thinks he loves them both, and he doesn't know if he's pleased or miserable, but certainly he is infinitely amused.

Certainly this is more torment than he bargained for, but Mello has a raw taste for masochism and what they did to him hurts exquisitely in the most fascinating way.

L allows Matt to kiss him, and he allows him to hold him up and to lap at his chest, but what really gets Mello is that he lets him – no, he all but leads him – to unclasp the buckle at his belt and unravel the metal fly, and, yes, to have at him as Mello had only dreamt of doing (and _oh, how he's dreamt it!_), leaving the blonde stunned and mortified and speechless, and when at last he finds his voice, it is with strange despair that he whispers,

"Oh, God—_Matt_…"

The younger boy looks up from L's chest and replies,

"You wanna know what it's like, is that it, Mello?"

And his fingers dance at the thin elastic stretching across the white skin below, tracing the edge and tugging it downward, and then he falls to his knees and his hands grasp the cloth hanging loose at L's bony hips and he flicks his gaze back to his friend, who is nodding slowly.

Matt's eyes roll up to look at L, who gazes back in approval, slender digits brushing through red strands of hair.

"_Please, Matt…"_

It's Mello who asks him to proceed, body frozen and eyes glistening with intense desperation, and, Matt knows he's doing this because Mello can't, so, looking back at L, he tugs at the cotton edge and, gently, lovingly, pulls it down, fingers sliding against the soft skin at his thighs.

This will be forever etched into Mello's memory.

This may well have been the most erotic scene he's watched.

_To be continued…_


	13. Chapter 13

There are a number of things that Matt loves. But mostly it's Mello.

And there are all kinds of reasons that Matt does stuff, but mostly it's because of Mello.

Which is why, fingertips brushing lightly against the white skin at L's thighs and head tilted curiously upward, Matt thinks that this feels somehow strange and somehow foreign, like driving a car in the wrong gear or listening to his iPod in mono or trying to vacuum on a hardwood floor—

He's supposed to be doing this for Mello, isn't he, because Mello is tied and bound and can't do this, himself, but, curiously transfixed on L's soft eyes, he understands at last that, really, 22qhe's doing this for himself.

Whatever he's come to figure out—whatever they have both come to figure out—oh, certainly L has figured it out first, isn't that right, and it's nice, isn't it, that there is at last one point of reason and consistency, and that is that _L knows_.

It's worthwhile to mention that, for the record, it's also nice that, even though he knows, L doesn't get mad, and that's why Mello asked him stuff and that's why Mello told him stuff and that, among a hundred other reasons, is why Mello liked him.

And other than respect and awe and admiration, therefore, there always has been simple love and the reassuring calm that came with the knowledge that L knows and that L doesn't get mad.

So this is okay, Matt thinks, this is okay that this is for himself, and this is okay, the way L looks at him, and this is okay, that it's been ages since he's done this for anyone other than Mello and that he's actually wanted to do this for anyone other than Mello, and _I still love you, Mello, you still know this, right, you still know…?_

Big, childlike eyes gaze up at L, and the older boy smiles kindly and brushes his fingers through Matt's hair,

_Yes, this is okay._

_And, yes, he still knows._

Matt's eyes close very slowly, and, left hand tight against L's thigh, he reaches tentatively with his right, and there again is the familiar warmth he's come so well to know, the hot slide of flesh against the membranes at his lips and bitter wetness of arousal and, beautiful and raw, the desperate utterance of approval, the digits hard in his hair and muscles tight against the palm of his hand, and long before, hair sliding and skin glistening with sweat and lips pressed hard against the flesh behind Matt's ear, Mello will ask him with the most sincere tone of desperation what it was like when he went down on L, Matt understands that _it's lovely, L is lovely_, and, to be honest, he would not at all mind doing it again.

And, really, it isn't until at last the hands at Matt's hair grow tight and rigid and the flat stomach goes strained and hard and all but forces him in place for the last brittle moments that he remembers that_ this is also for Mello_, and, tearing himself away, he opens his eyes and rises to his feet and, grasping Mello's face with moist hands, he forces his mouth tight against his, wet and messy and glistening white, and Mello's eyes close shut and he presses hard against Matt, breath coming fast and shallow through his nose.

They don't speak, they merely kiss for several minutes, Mello's long hair swinging and sticking to his face as he reaches for Matt with raw desperation, biting and licking and lapping at him and _don't swallow, you bastard, come closer, I want more_.

Matt can barely breathe, and, hands hard against Mello's shoulders, he finally detaches himself from him and turns his head away. Mello reaches after him, chest rising and falling with inhalation, and he licks slowly at his lips, frustrated and dissatisfied.

Poor Mello.

When Matt turns his head back, blue eyes gaze at him in melancholy defeat, and with gentle affection he runs his knuckles against the side of Mello's face. Eyelashes tightly shut, the older boy leans toward his hand with quiet longing.

He really wants it, doesn't he.

Matt begins kissing his neck, and, trying hard to maintain his composure, the boy murmurs,

"_Please, Matt—_"

"Yeah?"

"Please."

Matt's face is very close to Mello's when he whispers,

"You want me to give it to you?"

Eyes closed and breathing hard against him, Mello whispers back,

"I want you to give it to L."

Matt freezes.

"I—_what?_"

"He'd let you, Matt, you know he'd let you do it."

"I—" he lowers his voice even more, "_boss, you know I can't do that!_"

"Stop being such a pussy for once, Matt, God, just do it…"

Fuck.

What to do.

His back turned to L, Matt knows that _L knows_, because _L always knows_, and there's no way in hell Matt can do that, but also he knows that it's either that or Mello and L—

Damn it.

"Stop blushing like a dumbass and fucking look at me," Mello hisses, and even now, tied and bound, he's unquestionably in charge, and so, wishing for once that he could hide behind his goggles again, he raises his head back.

"L is doing this for us, you idiot," he mutters, "yeah, you heard me, not just for me, for _us_, and he's like, busy and shit, with important meetings and police stuff and cases but he's like spending all this time with us, and damn it, Matt, he freaking let you give him head, how many people do you think he lets—"

"Kira—"

"Shut up!" Mello rolls his eyes, "Okay listen, Matt, seriously, don't be stupid and revert back into your whole '_oh no, stuff is so whatever'_ attitude, do you understand that he'd let you—"

It's L's hand on Mello's cheek that ultimately quiets him,

"_Shhh…_" he says, brushing his fingers softly along the wet skin and under moist strands of hair, "I know this is difficult, but please try to calm down, Mello."

"L, he—"

"Please just hold on a moment." L turns to Matt, who is staring at him in panic, fishing absently through his jeans pocket for the cigarettes that aren't there,

"What does Matt want?"

Matt's fingers stop at his side and he looks up at L, eyes darting as he thinks, "Ah—"

"Matt, come on—" Mello interjects, but a slow wave of L's hand silences him.

Matt looks down to his feet, then up at Mello, then at L, and then up at the place where the walls meet the ceiling and really what he wants is to be back home, curled on the couch in his sweats and watching cartoons with an In-N-Out shake in one hand and a bag of Doritos in the other, but he thinks that's not really an answer that Mello wants to hear, which makes him wonder if he should tell him just to see him get pissed off again, and that makes him smile, which does the job as far as making Mello pissed off, and, running out of what little patience he had, the blonde snaps,

"_What…?!_"

"Nothing," Matt replies, looking down at his feet again and raising his hand to his mouth to hold back from laughing, then he waves his other hand absently, "I was just—yeah, sorry, okay, yeah, so…"

Mello flips his head up to L in exasperation and, infinitely annoyed, he cries,

"_L…!_"

The older boy rubs at the bridge of his nose, eyebrows raised and smiling with a mixture of frustration and amusement, and he calmly shushes Mello again.

"If Matt does not want to tell us what he wants, then maybe he wants to tell us what he doesn't want."

Matt rubs at the back of his neck, growing quiet as he tries to collect his thoughts.

"I, uh…" he thinks, "I don't want…"

Really, he isn't terribly used to seeing so much attention directed at his own personal wants and not-wants, and now that he's put on the spot, he finds that he doesn't really know, himself.

"Okay," L understands, and, with a gentle hand, he turns Matt's face to his.

"Tell me what you do with Mello."

"Ah—"

Matt blushes immediately.

"Matt," comes L's quiet voice, "it's okay." He raises his chin again, "just look at me right now. He won't hurt you. Just try to relax for a moment. Look at me."

Very quietly, Matt's eyes roll up to gaze at the older boy, whose unwavering stare is dark and soft, and, batting his eyelashes slowly, Matt replies,

"Um. Uh—well—"

"It's okay—go on."

Matt lowers his voice, feeling Mello's stare at his back, "you mean like, like what we do when—"

L nods.

"Okay, so—"

"It's fine," L says when again Matt stops, "he knows you're telling me because I asked."

"Okay. Okay, so," Matt swallows quietly, eyes darting to the corner of the room, "so he, Mello, he, um, he lets me sleep with him, and, uh," he slides a strand of hair behind his ear, "like, uh, that, I mean, what—" he looks up at L, "what you and I—"

L nods, allowing Matt to continue,

"yeah, um, so that, and also," he blinks, hand scratching at the back of his neck, "we, I, he, he also, that is, he likes when I, that is, when I'm, uh," he murmurs very quietly, "_on top_, and," he swallows again, "and I mean, I, uh, I mean, we both like that, and," he feels his face becoming more and more flushed, but he really tries to continue, although his voice has grown more and more quiet and now he's down to mumbling, "and also the other day he let me wash his hair, and, um, I mean, maybe that's not what you meant, uh, is—is that what you meant…" he trails off, looking at L shyly.

L gazes back, again brushing his hand through Matt's hair, "and that's all stuff you're fine with."

"Y—yeah, yes. I—I mean, more than fine, I mean—" he stops mid-sentence, cheeks burning red.

L nods, smiling kindly. "I understand."

Matt nods back, looking up at L and then at the wall and then back at L and then back at the wall, but definitely not at Mello.

"Don't worry about him," L says softly, "just look at me right now."

Matt looks up, trying very hard to listen to L and to focus on what he says instead of whether and how Mello will kill him later.

Black eyes gaze at him gently, "Go ahead," he says, slender fingers wrapping slowly around Matt's hand, "show me how you do it."

The younger boy stares, gasping silently, eyes big and mouth dry, and, with his free hand, L brushes the hair away from Matt's forehead and leans in to kiss him there, and then, looking at him again, urges him to go on.

"O—okay," Matt says at last, and, eyes closing, he licks his lips in concentration and, almost inaudibly, murmurs, "okay so, so—so lie down."

_To be continued…_


	14. Chapter 14

Matt tries not to think that Mello is there, and that Mello is watching, and especially that Mello might get mad or that he might think stuff, because L asked him to pay attention and to relax and to focus and right now Matt is trying to do this the way he understands L wants him to, so even though his face is flushed and his hands are trembling, he goes on, trying as much as he can to just calm down, _calm down_.

Fingers wrapped around the older boy's wrists, he leads L down to the carpet, because that's all he can think of doing and because there isn't a bed or a laundry machine or a kitchen counter and because he thinks they have done it on the floor a few times anyway.

"Is this okay?"

He asks quietly, looking down at L for approval, and L nods, telling him it's fine and urging him to proceed, so, running his hands nervously through his hair, Matt moves closer, and then reaches for his belt but then stops, thinking, and then, biting his lips slowly, brings one knee over L's slender figure and, with tense gentleness, gazes down at the boy lying beneath him, all patience and introspection.

"So then, um," Matt continues, "then, I mean, if he uh, if he wants to—so—that is—you—you want to, right—"

L smiles.

"That's right, I want to."

And for some reason, Matt blushes so furiously that, turning his head away, he actually raises one hand to cover his face, and, smiling sheepishly, he laughs,

"Wow, uh, um, okay, yeah, so…"

He coughs, brushing his bangs back again, and, fighting for composure, looks back down at L, and he continues very quietly, completely embarrassed,

"Okay so, so now we, uh—"

So L's shirt is already off, and the small cut Matt had made is now dry and dark, a very thin line that may well have been a scratch, but suddenly Matt feels very stupid and embarrassed that he made it and wonders what in the hell he was thinking, but L turns his face back to his and replies,

"Don't worry about that, Matt," and his fingers trace the edge of Matt's lower lip, "it was my idea to bring them out, wasn't it?"

The sharps, that is.

Matt nods slowly.

"Just keep going," L reminds him, and so Matt tries not to think about it, and, instead, tries to figure out what it is exactly that he and Mello do together.

He can't help rolling his eyes in Mello's direction when, sliding backward away from L's waist, he tugs at the trousers that the boy had since pulled back up, and then he turns his gaze back to his hands' work and watches in quiet fascination as the long, slender legs fold elegantly while Matt pulls the cloth away.

"Oh, um," he murmurs, returning to the older boy, "I guess it's not really exactly like that, I—"

He rubs at his lips with the palm of his hand for a few moments and then, returning back to L, who must be pretty cold, he thinks, and who is really very white and thin, Matt leans over him very carefully and, just before kissing him, he stops inches away from his face and, searching his eyes, asks,

"You must be cold—are you cold?"

"A little."

"Oh—oh, that, I'm sorry, I—" he mumbles, and trying to figure out what to do, begins raising his head away, but then L's hand comes sliding against the back of his neck and very gently pulls him closer, and, rising to his elbows, he takes Matt's lips.

"It's fine," he murmurs between kisses, "just keep going."

"I'm—sorry," Matt whispers back, and it feels nice, he thinks, it really does feel nice, and it actually does help him relax, and, as he leans closer, head buried in L's neck, he continues kissing him, and he thinks that maybe he really can do this.

_It's like with Mello_, he tells himself, _just pretend like you're with Mello_.

So he closes his eyes and inhales quietly and goes on, fingers trembling as they slide through L's silky hair and then he kisses his chest and kisses his shoulder and his hand and Mello watches in curious fascination as Matt's long fingers again slide under the white elastic at L's flat stomach and pull it away, and Mello smiles inwardly because he understands, because Matt remembers that Mello likes it that way, when he's completely naked but Matt is still fully clothed, and actually sometimes Mello likes it when they both still have most of their clothes on, but this is because Mello wears leather and he likes it when Matt fucks him while he's wearing leather.

But Mello is made of fire and Mello can take it, but Matt isn't so sure about L, because L is white and slender and delicate and really there doesn't seem to be the smallest bit of muscle on his entire body, and suddenly Matt is afraid that he would break him if he wasn't careful, and he tries to remember when the last time was that he slept with someone who wasn't Mello and whether he had ever been with someone so fragile.

And, strangely enough, as he watches on, Mello finds himself thinking just the same thing.

_He's so fragile. Don't hurt him._

He wonders what Kira was like. Of course, Kira wanted to kill L, but L said he was manipulative and seductive, so he must not have been harsh. He must have been gentle.

And suddenly, Mello wonders what he looked like and whether he was beautiful.

L is beautiful, Mello thinks, he's always thought L was beautiful, and also Matt is beautiful, and aside from being hopelessly aroused and infinitely frustrated, and also aside from how the layers upon layers of very tight leather bands and metal chains are gnawing into his naked skin, all in all he really isn't all that miserable.

Jealous, no, not really jealous—more crushed that he can't play with them, too.

They seem to be playing nice.

Really, it's very interesting to watch, Mello smiles sadly because he knows there is this gentleness in Matt, this tentative softness that has always exasperated and annoyed him, but he thinks that were he allowed to have a go at L, he would act just the same, or at least try to, because for all his love and undying admiration, Mello really is made of fire and he really does have to force himself to be gentle.

It's beautiful, really, Matt's hair sliding against L's Thighs, and Mello knows what that feels like and he knows it's very soft and nice and what's also very nice is the serene expression on L's face as he urges Matt to continue, fingers brushing against his cheek and quiet voice murmuring that _yes, keep going_, and _that's good_, and _go ahead, go on_.

Then after several minutes, at last Matt withdraws, backing a bit and brushing the back of his hand against his wet lips, and, tongue slowly tracing the edge of his mouth, murmurs,

"Okay, so—so that was okay—"

L smiles, eyes closing softly,

"Yes, that was very nice. Matt shouldn't be so scared—"

He gasps, because that's when Matt has taken his legs a little too much like how he does it to Mello, and it's not that he meant to but Maybe it was a bit rough, and so then right away Matt stops, and, looking down in a panic, his hands grow tighter on L's thighs and that hurts more, and before Matt can formulate the right expression of regret, L murmurs with a certain amount of misery that _it's fine_, just, _just please not so tight, and not with your nails_, and—and _good, thank you, that's better_.

"I'm sorry," Matt manages at last, and he knows that L is tired of hearing him murmur and mumble and apologize, so, biting his lip slowly, he tries instead to go on.

"Okay, so—" he says, looking down at L, "so—"

He looks down at himself and then, still holding L's thigh, he reaches for his belt with his other hand, and, without looking up, explains quietly,

"so usually I just, uh—I just leave everything on, and—"

He undoes the clasp with one hand and then the fly and despite how nervous and embarrassed and just generally freaked out he feels, thank God, oh, _thank God_ he can still get it up, and really that's not something he's ever had a problem with, and if anything he's had problems _getting it to go back down_, but still, _still, okay, thank God_.

Mello can't see exactly when Matt is doing it. He can't see exactly what it's like or just how Matt goes about it, but he can see him bent attentively over L's naked figure, and he can see Matt's hair drape over his eyes as he looks downward and his arm moving and he can see the composure in L's face and his lips parting ever so slightly in the most quiet sound of inspiration, and suddenly Mello catches himself thinking not how sexy and beautiful L is but rather that he wishes _he_ was with Matt and that _he_ was the one who was—

"It's in."

"Yes."

"Does—it hurt?"

Matt kicks himself mentally for asking something so stupid. It's not like it's his first time. And it's not like L has no concept of pain – he's an expert at that sort of thing.

"A little."

"Should—"

"Yes."

"Okay."

So he doesn't ask anything more and instead he keeps going, and he really tries hard to be very gentle, and it becomes more and more clear to him that it's difficult to pretend that he's doing this with Mello because _L isn't like Mello_ and L doesn't act like Mello and L doesn't taste like Mello, and yet, _and yet somehow that's okay_, and _somehow that's fine_ and he finds that

_it doesn't make him like Mello any less_,

and suddenly he stops, because suddenly it makes sense, and suddenly he understands something he never thought he could understand.

_To be continued…_


	15. Chapter 15

"Don't stop."

It's L. He's not looking at Matt because, for once, his eyes are closed, and his delicate fingertips are lightly clawing at the carpet and his soft hair frames him in a dark cascade, slowly pouring over the side of his face and onto the floor, and it's something neither Matt nor Mello had ever witnessed before, and it dawns on Matt that _he actually likes it_, and until now Matt has been so busy trying to do what L said and trying not to focus on what Mello might think and also on not hurting L, and it hasn't even crossed his mind that maybe what he's doing _is actually something that L likes_.

"Oh..!" Matt replies, trying to remember not to hold L's legs too tightly, "y—you like it?"

Eyes still closed, L actually laughs, and he nods slowly,

"Yes, I like it."

And Mello actually isn't going to call Matt a dumbass, because Mello, himself, is stunned to find that L likes it—not because he thinks Matt might not be good—on the contrary, Mello _knows_ that Matt is good—but rather because neither of them has really thought that L is doing this for any reason other than compassion for them.

Matt is suddenly overcome with affection, and, all at once, he leans down closer to L and wraps his arms around the slender neck and kisses him, and, stiffening in surprise, L waits patiently until he's finished and then, staring up, he mumbles,

"I asked Matt _not_ to stop."

"I—sorry..!" the boy replies, moving away a bit and trying nervously to start again, but he's smiling sheepishly, he can't help it, and he's weirdly proud of himself because not only did L let him do it, but he actually _liked_ it.

And for a moment he considers turning around and sticking his tongue out at Mello, but he also thinks of something else.

"L," he says quietly, "did you love Kira?"

It's a simple question, and also a ridiculous one, Matt thinks, because no doubt they hated one another and really they wanted to kill one another, but as stupid as it sounds to Matt when it leaves his lips, he knows its been on both his and Mello's mind ever since L had brought this up.

"Matt and Mello are very interested in this subject."

Matt nods, and _now_ Mello thinks he's a dumbass, but really, he, too would like to know.

L's smile fades, and he's quiet for a long time before answering,

"In many ways I did," he says softly, "Light was a very interesting person."

"Light," Matt replies, "it sounds like you were close."

L nods, eyes turned away as he thinks.

"That's right. We worked together for a long time."

"Worked together?"

"It's complicated."

"What, um—" Matt tries to change the subject, "—what did he look like?"

Dark eyes turn back to gaze at him, and L smiles.

"That's a strange question."

"S—sorry."

L grows quiet again, and then he smiles and replies simply,

"A little bit like you, actually."

Matt stops all at once, staring back in complete surprise.

Mello, who has been listening with a great deal of interest, is stunned, as well, and also he's mad now, because what was L getting at with all the _I don't think Mello wants to play Kira_ when all along—

"Please don't let this bother you," L says quietly, "Light wasn't really like Matt at all."

This, of course, makes things worse, and Matt and Mello actually exchange bewildered glances, and then L's eyelids lower partway and he looks up at Matt in irritation,

"You stopped again."

"Ah—" Matt flips his head back, dumbfounded and speechless, and because he doesn't know what to say in response, he starts again .

"L," comes Mello's voice, low and serious, "did—did he love you back?"

"_Mello…!_" Matt whispers in disbelief, this time remembering not to stop, and even though he feels embarrassed about what his friend asked, he can't deny that he, himself, is interested.

Gazing up at the ceiling, L is very calm when he replies,

"I don't think Light ever loved anyone."

He doesn't seem sad or heartbroken or bothered, he merely stares into space as if deep in speculation, like this is as amusing and interesting to him as any other strange idea.

"That's a pretty name," Mello says suddenly, "His name was Light, just like that?"

L gazes in Mello's direction, eyebrows raised, and after a moment, he replies,

"Yes. And yes, it is pretty."

Mello nods, and he understands that probably Light, himself, was pretty, and he wonders whether L thought he was pretty and how much he actually looked like Matt.

As if reading his mind, L smiles at Mello,

"Oh, he was very beautiful. Everyone thought so."

It's strange to hear, because neither of them has ever heard L speak of someone that way, but it comes more as a general fact than personal opinion.

And after that they are all deep in thought, and that's good because it helps Matt concentrate on trying to do it in a way that he thinks L would like and that wouldn't be too harsh and wouldn't hurt too much, and he wonders if L is sad, and he thinks it must have hurt that L loved someone who wanted to kill him, but he understands that L is unique and that for him it was probably good because L thought that Light was interesting, and for L it's good when things are interesting.

He wonders if L thinks that he and Mello are interesting, and then he understands why Mello writes and investigates things for L with such careful attention and enthusiasm—Mello _knows_ that L is driven by interest in problem-solving and, really, when something catches his interest, he attends to it with complete focus and genuine love.

"I—" he says softly, hair swaying as he continues moving, "I can't imagine that Kira didn't love you."

It comes quiet and filled with simple honesty, and L says nothing in response and merely continues gazing up at the younger boy.

It's impossible not to love L.

And it's become impossible for Matt to be jealous that Mello loved L, because he thinks he loves L, too.

He says nothing more as he continues moving, until, eventually, he feels that he's going to finish soon, so, very quietly, he murmurs, "I—um—I'm gonna—and, uh, Mello—usually—likes that—"

"Oh, you idiot," Mello interjects, "don't you freaking _dare_, I will seriously kick your ass if you even think of—"

"Uh—um, okay, so—"

"Just finish the way you're going now, don't do anything stupid, Matt…"

L's eyes dart from one boy to the other and back, and neither one of them bothers explaining because, even if L didn't probably already know everything, this isn't something he needs to worry about anyway, and even if it was very hot when Mello and Matt took turns humiliating and degrading each other by competing to see which one of them can out-perv the other by pulling out and finishing sex in the messiest and dirtiest way, just what kind of moron was Matt for thinking even for a second that that's something he could do to the precious, sacred—

_Actually, that would be very hot_, Mello thinks for just the briefest of moments, and then he blushes immediately for thinking it

But Matt doesn't do anything stupid, he merely grasps harder at L's thigh and, with his other hand, at the carpet, and, eyes closed and lips parted and hair swinging, he moves faster, and even though Mello can't see his face behind the rapid swing of his hair, he can hear them both breathing, fast exhalation and slow inhalation and silence and fast exhalation and slow inhalation and silence and—

And finally it's over and Matt's head hangs forth, shoulders rising and falling with the quiet exhaustion that follows, and, after a few moments he kneels down and reaches around L with trembling arms and, still not pulling out, buries his face in his neck and he thinks he might fall asleep, and Mello watches with strange curiosity as the white arms come around Matt's back and brush softly, and Matt can think of a hundred things he wants to say,

_I liked it too_

And _thank you_

And _I understand now, Mello_

And _this must have been really frustrating, Mello_

And _I love you, L_

And _I love you, Mello_

And many other things, both coherent and incoherent and both sensible and not so sensible, and ultimately he says nothing—

But _L knows_.

So he allows Matt to hold him and kiss him and marvel at how precious and delicate he must think he is, and when he's finished and he finally pulls out, L rises to his knees, and, smiling kindly at Matt, he stands and walks toward Mello.

The blond looks up in surprise and amusement, and L is very tall and thin and completely naked and white, and, without a word or any kind of warning, he leans in and kisses Mello, hard and slow and hot, and Mello, who was completely unprepared for this, feels his entire body go hot and limp and only the chains hold him up now, and for a few seconds he thinks he doesn't exist at all and that this isn't really happening and _oh my God, that's L, that's really L, that's—_

"Well then, Mello," comes the quiet voice, low and composed as ever,

"Shall we get started?"

_To be continued…_


	16. Chapter 16

"Again," Mello whispers when at last he finds his voice, and, long hair hanging limp against his face, he fights uselessly for composure.

L says nothing. His dark eyes gaze at Mello without expression and without emotion, and then he reaches for the boy's face with one hand and continues staring at him, white fingers sliding against his cheek, and Mello tries to kiss them but he can't quite reach, so he doesn't, and instead he watches them wander to his chin and then his shoulder until finally they move away.

"_God_," Mello sighs, trembling under his touch in utter humility, and he feels weak and dizzy and so aroused that it hurts, it really hurts.

_Fuck me, oh, God, please, please fuck me._

There are chains and leather bands fastened and buckled and locked all around his naked body, layer upon layer firm and tight, straps that will leave marks and cuts when at last they come off and he's worn them for so long that his skin begins to burn and go numb under the pressure.

"It hasn't been easy for Mello," comes again the quiet voice, and L's fingers trace a line down Mello's chest, passing over the hard ridges of the binds, and, eyes fixed on the long digits, Mello says hoarsely that no, it really hasn't.

"You're probably very tired, isn't that right," L continues, withdrawing his hand and stepping back, and Mello watches as he paces around to his side and then reaches for a latch that has come loose and threads it again.

Sure, he's tired, yeah, and it hurts and everything, but he likes that L is touching him and he likes that the reason he can feel the binds shifting and re-tightening is that L is handling them and he likes that L is talking to him and, really, he can't think of a better reason to be tired.

"I'm fine," he begins saying, but then he stops because L's fingers are at the nape of his neck and then he inhales quickly when he kisses him, and the fingers slide around to his face and come loosely against his mouth and L asks him to please try to be quiet, and before Mello can point out that he hasn't said anything, all at once comes the sharp pain of intrusion, and Mello's scream comes muffled into the digits at his mouth.

Matt looks up with a start, and, amused, gazes at Mello, whose head is bowed, hair falling disheveled over his face and breathing hard into L's hand, and, waiting for him to calm down, L remains silent and does not withdraw his fingers all the while.

"I wonder," he says, now pressing them farther in, "if Mello can really handle this."

Mello's chest rises and falls with hard breath and, voice hoarse, he murmurs, "I can take it."

"I'm glad to hear that, Mello," L replies, "I'd hate to think we spent all this time putting this together for nothing."

Mello begins to reply but again is silenced when the fingers go farther in, and he tries not to cry out like last time but he can't help it, and, lips sliding against the shell of his ear, L mumbles for him to please be quiet.

"You're wondering, aren't you," he whispers, and, breath hot and moist against L's hand, Mello nods,

"Yeah."

And he can feel the lips stretching to a smile against his ear and L bites at the cartilage shell when he replies,

"Yes, I did. And no, he didn't like it."

It's really too much, L being so close and touching him like that, and Mello finds it somehow very interesting when L talks about Light, and he wonders what exactly he did to him and whether it was anything like this and was it okay that Light was only seventeen, or maybe it was, in England.

"Did you tie him up," Mello asks, and it's out of genuine curiosity, and, very simply, L replies,

"Yes, I did."

"Like this?"

"Far worse."

Mello's eyes go big behind his hair, and he wonders how much worse it could possibly be, and then he remembers that not only was Light a suspect, but that he was the actual culprit, that is, he was actually Kira.

"Do you know what we're about to do, Mello?"

"Yeah."

"Can I trust you to stay calm?"

"I…"

"Does Mello want me to do with I did with Matt?"

Blue eyes stare ahead incredulously, and for a moment Mello thinks he has lost himself entirely, and he hasn't answered yet when suddenly he feels L's hand on him, and he clenches his teeth to hold himself back from—

"Tell me," he says, voice hoarse and broken, "what was it like—what was it like with him."

Long eyelashes flicker against his neck and L replies,

"Is that your new love interest then?"

"No."

"Please try to be quiet."

"_Oh, God_, are—are you going to do it now—"

It's more a plea than anything else.

"I'm going to do it."

If Mello could turn his head enough to look, he would love to look – he would love to see L's face and his thin body against him, he would love to see how he's touching him and how those white hands are running along the curve of his back and holding his waist, but he can't see anything and, really, he's too overwhelmed to look at all, so he merely hangs his head down in the desperate subordination he's wanted to feel for so long and stares ahead from behind his hair, and just before L proceeds, he gazes at Matt and, very calmly, asks him if he would mind terribly helping him hold Mello down.

"Oh—um—okay," the younger boy replies, brushing his hair back and walking over to them.

Mello rolls his eyes up toward him in absolute despair, and it's almost frightening how clearly he can see the torment, and L doesn't have to tell Matt exactly what to do, because Matt knows, he's known this look of despair and torment since they were children.

And also Matt knows that what Mello wants isn't tender consolation, and he smiles wickedly at the blonde as he tilts his face up to his.

"It's what you've always wanted, Mello," he whispers, lips brushing against his, and then he looks up at L, then back at his friend. "Try not to scream too loud, Mello, L's gonna give it to you."

Mello closes his eyes when Matt kisses him, but he still screams, loud and raw and muffled and Matt holds him hard and tight until at last he's subdued, long limbs hanging helpless against the binds, and, very quietly comes L's patient voice against his ear,

"Yes, he cried, too."

_To be continued…_


	17. Chapter 17

L remembers that this really was a difficult case, he remembers with fascination what it was like to know he might die soon, the intense focus he felt simultaneously to investigate and compete with someone remarkably sharp and not entirely stable, and yes, it was interesting, wasn't it, and also he remembers Light in his arms, he really was very dangerous, but L still liked holding Light in his arms.

You don't get to choose toward whom to have feelings, do you?

He hasn't been with anyone else since. He'd always felt affection toward the kids at Wammy's House, he was interested in hearing their thoughts and reading their projects and listening when they wanted to tell him things, he liked the enthusiasm and admiration with which Mello researched things for him, and really he was okay with this too, it was nice—of course, it wasn't like with Light—but it was nice.

_L, I'm hot_,

He remembers Mello tugging at his sleeve a long time ago, it was summer and it really was hot and they couldn't sleep and L set up a fan beside Mello's bed, which didn't do a whole lot of good by itself, but he hoped that if he put it by the window, it would bring air in from the outside, which was still cooler than the air inside.

Mello had watched him carry it in and put it together and adjust it and when L asked him if that was better, Mello nodded quietly and watched him draw back the blinds.

"I'll see you in the morning," L smiled as he walked out the door, and Mello replied,

"See you in the morning too,"

But he may well have said _I love you more than anything in the world_, because that's what he was thinking.

L knows that Mello and Matt like him. He knows that they are interested in listening to him talk about investigations and cases and criminals and that they like asking him questions about stuff he figured out and stuff he likes and stuff he did, and, really, when matters aren't dangerous or confidential, he likes talking to them and answering their questions.

And he likes how Mello feels in his arms, lean and warm and bony and soft and really very cute, and, yes, Mello wants to be hurt, and L is willing to deliver, but really, he knows just to what extent he's willing to deliver.

And Mello thinks he's never felt so secure. His head buried in the crook of Matt's neck, he breathes out with hot desperation, hair bouncing softly and arms wrapped tightly around him, and Matt holds him and tries uselessly to subdue him, lips pressed against his forehead and eyes gazing at L.

L, who is smiling with serene composure, whose eyes are softly shut, whose long fingers grasp tightly at Mello's thin waist, and he laughs inwardly when he remembers that, long ago, Mello told him that L was his favorite person and that he would very much like to visit his home planet one day.

"L," Matt says, hand brushing through Mello's hair as the blonde gasps hard against him, "I think he'd like being able to see you."

L continues for a few moments and then stops, trying to catch his breath as he thinks.

"Don't go," Mello's voice comes dry and hoarse, and he does not move his head from Matt's shoulder; he doesn't want L to withdraw, but he does, and, very gently, Matt unravels the boy's limbs from around him and hands him to L, who gathers him into his arms and brushes the hair back from his face and inspects him slowly.

He kisses Mello's forehead and then his cheek and his ear and his neck, and then he reaches for the uppermost latch binding the brace to the lateral chains and, one by one, unfastens the metal hooks, and then the ones reaching lower to the legs and feet until they all hang disconnected and loose, and then, looking directly into Mello's eyes, the laces and binds securing his arms and wrists, and there are many of these, layer upon layer upon layer that they had spent a long time putting on, until at last his hands are free.

And then, lifting him off the ground with strength neither Mello nor Matt ever thought he had, L smiles at Mello and, quietly, he says,

"Go ahead, Mello."

Mello doesn't move for several moments. He all but hangs loose from L's grasp, looking down at him with lethargy and confusion.

"L…" he mouths dryly, and his fingers reach toward him and run tentatively through his dark hair, and it's just as nice as he remembers it from the last time he did that many years ago.

And then his fingers trace the bony line of his mandible to his chin and then his lips and he stops there and gazes at him silently, eyes tired and blinking and limbs aching and throat parched;

He throws his arms around L's neck and seizes his mouth, fingers pressing hard against the articulations at his shoulders and chest tight against him, and he, himself, doesn't quite understand what he's doing or why, but he thinks he's never wanted anything so much.

L allows this for some time until he all but loses his balance and attempts to put Mello down, but Mello clings hard and does not let go, until they both collapse against the edge of the desk and Mello presses L down on the flat surface and then, still bound at the ankles, he climbs up after him, and, very slowly, he leans in to kiss the place on his chest where Matt had cut him earlier. Then, hair falling against him, he whispers something that L can't hear, and, grasping hard at the bony hips, he dives toward his abdomen, and despite protests and warnings and attempts to pull him back, he takes him past his lips and into his mouth hard against the back of his throat, and eyes squeezed shut, he does not let go, he does not let go.

"M-Mello," L says quietly, pulling at his hair, "this isn't why I untied you."

Mello still does not let go.

L and Matt stare at him for several seconds in silence until finally he eases up on the boy's hips and withdraws very slowly.

He gazes at L through rogue strands of hair, tongue brushing against the member firm and tight in his hand, and, very quietly, he murmurs,

"Please forgive me, L—ever since I saw Matt do that to you, I wanted—"

He trails off, taking him in again, and then, eyes closed, and lips brushing against the skin at his mouth, whispers,

"But that's a lie—I've always wanted to—"

And then he kisses L's stomach and his hips and his thighs and, lips red and wet, continues down and runs his tongue against him with strange hunger, and L wants to tell him to stop but, face flushed, he lies devastated in the cruel realization that this leaves dreams awakened and lost memories unfurled,

_Light, do you know?_

Thin, white fingers trace the ridges of vertebrae at Mello's neck and his shoulders and arms and that's as far down as he can reach, and, breath soft and slow, he whispers,

"Mello—stop—don't you want me to—"

"Yes," comes the reply, but he doesn't stop, not until at last comes a gentle tug at the leash long forgotten and still clasped at his neck.

Mello's eyes roll up to look at L gazing down at him, and the older boy pets his hair and smiles,

"Matt thinks you'd like to be able to see me."

_To be continued…_


	18. Chapter 18

"S-sorry," Mello says quietly, and yet he still doesn't let go, but he thinks he can't take his eyes off L's face, and it's Matt who speaks up instead.

"Mello," he says, still fully dressed and peering at him from breside the desk, and then, lowering his voice, "L wants to-you know-"

His eyes roll up to look at the older boy, and then back down at Mello's hands, and he doesn't say any more because L knows everything anyway.

Mello continues staring at L, transfixed, lips brushing gently against the still-hard member at his mouth, until, very slowly, he feels Matt's fingers wrap around his hand.

"Let me-"

This seems to break the spell, and Mello flips his head in Matt's direction.

"What are-"

"Sorry, L," he says, then proceeds to take him into his mouth, but Mello pushes him away.

"_What do you think you're doing...?_"

"I-"

"You've already had-"

"I-I wanted to again and-"

"Well, you can't now, cause now I'm-"

Then Matt takes the member between his lips, despite Mello's hand wrapped possessively around it, and despite being tired and on the verge of injury, Mello pushes him away, gritting his teeth, and begins fighting him for it, to L's vast amusement.

L allows this to go on for several minutes until he thinks he's had enough, and then down come the palms of his hands on top of their heads and he draws them back.

"While I can't help feeling flattered by this charming rivalry, I think that Mello had something else in mind."

Mello and Matt look up, each with one hand still grasping him selfishly.

"Move it, Matt," Mello deadpans, not taking his eyes off L.

"You too, Mello," L says quietly, and finally they both let go.

"Mello doesn't want it gentle, does he," L asks quietly, sliding off the desk and letting go of the leash.

"I want it any way you want to give it to me," Mello hears himself murmur, but L knows better.

"_Hey, Mello_," Matt asked once upon a time when they were doing homework in the lounge, "How do you change the size of the font on your computer?"

He was scrolling through his laptop, trying to access a file for class.

Mello glanced over; the font was nearly microscopic, and Matt must have done something to make it that way and now he didn't remember what.

"Let me see," Mello said, putting down the game he was holding and pushing his friend away from the chair. It was one of those puzzles made of metal wires tangled up in complex ways that you had to unravel, and Mello had nearly gotten it figured out, and when he had it figured out, he was going to show it to L, and L was going to be very proud of him because this puzzle was supposed to be hard.

"Okay, so," he said, finger on the mouse pad, "I'm guessing you go to settings….um…" he proceeded to open the control panel when he noticed Matt reaching for the puzzle.

"Don't," he said, reaching for it, "I've almost got it solved."

"Heh. That's what you said last night."

"Yeah well, I thought I was gonna solve it last night. Come on, give it," he said, now turning his head toward the younger boy in agitation and reaching for the thing.

"I won't change it, I'm just looking."

"Matt—"

Then came the sound of voices approaching, and both boys turned their heads to the door to see if it was L, in which case Mello needed to hide the puzzle because he wasn't going to tell him he was working on it until he figured it out.

"Give it," he hissed, grabbing it from Matt's hands with his eyes still fixed on the entrance, but it turned out it wasn't L – it was just Roger and one of the instructors.

"Good," Mello said, but part of him was disappointed, and part of him kind of wanted L to know he was working on the puzzle in order to show him how good he was at solving it.

Still now, Mello finds himself perpetually wishing that L would walk into the room while he's doing projects, and still now he wishes that L would know that Mello is solving puzzles in order to show him how good he is at solving them.

And even now, delirious with love and arousal and pain, part of him is cognizant enough to feel self conscious that he's reduced merely to infatuation and lust, but he knows that L knows better.

"_Oh, there he is,"_ Mello exclaimed, putting down his fork and practically leaping out of his seat.

Matt watched him trot across the dining room, finished puzzle in his hand, to the entrance, where L and Watari have just come in.

It took him a few hours more to solve it, and he had it with him at dinner.

"L!" Mello said, face flushed from running and eyes beaming in satisfaction, "look, look at this."

L and Watari stopped and L waved to him, and Matt watched from the table as Mello held the puzzle up to L and explained it and showed him how it used to be and how he solved it, and then he let L take it and L was smiling and probably asking him stuff, Matt really couldn't hear and, really, he didn't care, and he wondered if he should care, but really he thought he only cared about how happy Mello seemed to be and how funny his hair looked bouncing like that when he ran.

Mello still looks funny, Matt thinks, with his long hair and his wicked smile, and Matt loves how he looks, because really, he thinks the funny way Mello looks is very sexy. And it's with absolute amusement that Matt watches L take Mello's right leg in his hand and, looking directly at him, bring him against the wall.

Matt thinks he's never seen Mello put such blind trust in anyone. Mello wraps his arms around L's slender neck and presses his head back when it goes in, and, one palm flat against the wall, L thrusts hard against him, and Mello's breath comes fast and desperate, hands tightening around the older boy and fingers running tentatively against the white skin and through his soft hair.

His curiosity about Kira seems to have faded, and now he can barely think at all, and all he can do is stare into L's eyes with pure admiration, thinking that _L is perfect, L really is perfect_.

_Is it okay to kiss him?_ He wonders, and while he's actually kissed him already, that still doesn't mean that it's okay.

"_Mello likes these puzzles?"_

"Yeah, and this, this one, at first it was like this—" Matt watched Mello make a curved motion with his finger to show how the loops and turns were hooked at the beginning, "and at first I thought you have to move it this way, but then it turns out what you have to do is first you have to move it like this—"

Matt watched as L nodded in genuine curiosity, and he could tell that he really was impressed, and ultimately L told Mello that it really is very hard to solve these puzzles and Mello seemed to beam with absolute ecstasy when L asked if he could keep it and try to get it back to the way it was at the beginning.

And when, flushed and excited and out of breath, Mello returned at last to the table, Matt smiled around his fork and asked Mello how it went. "Oh, man, awesome, it was totally sweet, did you see how he like—and—and I gave him the puzzle so he can solve it too." Matt let Mello keep talking for a while, but he wasn't really listening, because it was more interesting to look at how excited and cute he was when he talked like that and also there were curly fries tonight and Matt liked those, and actually he ate Mello's after he finished his own, but Mello didn't seem to mind.

Mello still looks very cute now, when, flushed and excited, he smiles at L with infinite fascination, and L smiles back, moving against him without the roughness and sadistic cruelty that Mello might have wanted, but with the same gentle affection that L showed him many years ago when, drawing back the blinds that warm night, he grinned and said, "see you in the morning."

And at last, Mello moves closer to L, and like he's always wanted to, he covers him with kisses, and L closes his eyes and laughs, losing his concentration and almost losing hold of Mello's leg.

"That's cute," Matt thinks, playing with the twisted end of a pen cap he's been chewing, and he wonders what they should have for dinner afterward, and also he thinks he wants to screw Mello later that night because Mello looks really sexy.

_To be continued…_


	19. Chapter 19

For a moment it's as though Mello has forgotten that he isn't a small thirteen-year-old kid but rather a tall, slender twenty-year-old with a thin, elegant build and long fingers that reach around L's neck and grab tight hold of his shoulders.

A twenty-year-old who has long since reached full height but who nevertheless clings to L completely and is very willingly at his mercy.

L allows it, thrusting hard against him, head tilted slightly upward and breath coming fast while Mello holds him and continues kissing his neck and his face and his shoulder, whatever's in reach.

"Mello likes this?"

L asks, his fingers wrapped around the hard flesh pressing against his abdomen, and Mello nods, feverish and out of breath,

"Yes…" he whispers with childlike surrender he wouldn't show anyone else.

He gasps and nearly cries and thinks the mere sensation of L's hand around him is enough to make him come, and he tries to hold back as much as he can.

But L doesn't let go, and his fingers continue moving against him, firm and slender and somehow gentle, and he can hear L's breath against his ear,

"Shall I keep going then?"

"Ah—"

Mello can't answer, because it feels amazing, but he doesn't think he can hold back from—

"Is this what Mello wanted?"

"I—"

L lets go altogether and suddenly his hands grasp Mello's face and he seizes his mouth, and Mello whimpers in desperation and breathes hard when they part, his lips wet and glistening.

And then, before he can say anything more, comes suddenly the shock of pain when L slaps him hard across the face.

Mello topples to the floor, ankles still bound and eyes wide as he stares up at the older boy, and slowly his fingers rise to his cheek. It's still hot and alive with pain.

Even Matt didn't hit him this hard.

Matt rushes to his side immediately, but stops at the warning of L's hand.

"No," L says, and then kneels down before Mello, long fingers wrapping around the leash.

But he doesn't pull him by the leash.

He pulls him by the hair.

Mello cringes, and Matt watches in stunned silence as L pulls him up to his knees. Then L stares at Mello in silence, dark eyes large and unblinking, and after several seconds, he continues,

"Tell me what you really want, Mello."

Silence.

Mello stares back, but it isn't the look of defiance Matt has come to know and love; it's a look of actual fear, and Matt knows that even though Mello could probably defend himself, he wouldn't dare to try.

Not with L. He knows better.

L still hasn't let go, and after several seconds have passed and Mello hasn't said anything, he says, very calmly,

"Mello wants me to hit him harder."

"_Yes_—"

It comes almost inaudibly, and before Mello has managed to utter the full syllable, it comes again, just as hard and painful as before, but this time he doesn't fall because L is still holding him by the hair.

Mello glances up through disheveled strands of hair, and he really is a mess now, and there really are tears in his eyes, and Matt thinks he can't watch this, he just can't watch this, and he remembers L telling him that he assumes Matt can handle this, but now Matt really thinks he can't.

"L, please—" Matt whispers, but again L tells him to stop.

Mello's body is still covered with cuts and scrapes and bruises from the binds, and now he's bleeding from the corner of his mouth and his face is pale and Matt thinks he might collapse, and this is more painful to watch than anything else they've done tonight.

L gazes down at Mello without expression and without emotion, and, very quietly, he continues,

"That's not it, is it, Mello?"

Mello's chest rises and falls with slow breaths, and Matt thinks he's too terrified to speak, and there's something very disturbing about this, because he's never seen Mello this afraid before.

Mello doesn't need to reply.

Because _L knows_.

"Tell me,"

L says, fingers still grasping his hair and eyes still unmoving, and now he moves closer to Mello's face, the words ghosting against his skin.

"I want—"

Mello speaks at last, voice hoarse and desperate,

"Yes, keep going," L replies, his lips mere inches from Mello's, and the blonde swallows very slowly,

"I want you to—"

L's lips brush against his, but then he moves away, and he tilts Mello's head up to face him. Mello's eyes squeeze shut when he swallows again, and he blinks a few times before again they close and he murmurs,

"I want you to tell me exactly what you did with Kira."

"Ah…" L says, quiet and composed as ever, "…there it is."

"I want to know—I want to know everything," Mello breathes, lips dry and parted and eyes still closed, "I want to know what he was like and what he did and what it was like when—when you—when you fucked him, and, and I want to know what he felt like and what he smelled like and what he tasted like and—"

"That's enough—"

"And what his body felt like when you held him and—"

"That—"

"—_and is he still alive, L, is he still alive_—"

This time Mello thinks he didn't even feel it when it came; he remembers only the rough brush of the carpet when his face collided against it, and the faint sound of his hair tearing reverberating through the air and the iron taste of blood hot against the inside of his lip;

When he comes to, his eyes roll up to gaze at L, and, only part conscious, he whispers,

"_I'm sorry_."

Matt can't take this anymore. He paces across the room and kneels down at Mello's side, gathering him into his lap and staring up at L.

L doesn't stop him this time.

After a long silence, L kneels beside them, too.

"I'm sorry, Mello," he replies, "but that's confidential."

_To be continued…_


	20. Chapter 20

Eyes big and wide and fixed on L kneeling beside him, Mello rubs at his cheek with trembling fingers. He thinks he can't feel a thing, the whole area is red and numb, and he licks his lips slowly.

He thinks he can't feel them, either.

Peering at him silently, L reaches toward him with one hand, and he brushes the hair away from his face and wraps his fingers around Mello's wrist, pulling it away from his cheek.

Dark eyes dart toward the red skin with quiet introspection, and, tucking Mello's hair behind one ear, L leans closer and presses his lips to Mello's cheek very gently.

Mello's eyes flutter shut and he exhales quietly, fingers closing around L's arm.

"Again," Mello whispers as L takes him in his arms and lifts him off the floor, but Matt interjects,

"Don't do it to him again," he says, standing up beside L, "he'll ask you to hit him until he's unconscious, but don't do it, okay, just—"

"I like when you hit me," comes the soft murmur from Mello's lips, but L turns his head to look at Matt.

"You're right," he says quietly, "this is enough."

He tells Matt to follow him, and then he asks him to open the door to one of the cupboards at the side of the room. There are linens inside, tablecloths and sheets and napkins, and L asks him to take out one of the sheets.

They wrap it around Mello's body and then L points out one of the drawers in the desk and asks Matt to open it and take out a set of keys. They exit to the hallway and down two floors to a series of suites, and Matt thinks to say something about the fact that L still hasn't put anything on, but he holds his tongue.

L owns this whole building, Matt knows this, and it's stunning how large and intricate it is, and he wonders what goes on in these rooms and why in the world an office building would need several floors containing suites with beds and baths and kitchens and God knows what else.

When they reach one of the doors, L asks Matt to unlock it, and after he does, they walk inside to the large room. It's almost like a hotel suite, but much larger – almost like an apartment – and while it's fully furnished, it's totally unoccupied, and L asks Matt to follow as he walks toward the bathroom.

It's a very spacious and elaborate room, with a large bath and several mirrors and a beautiful marble floor, and L kneels at the edge of the tub, turning on the water.

Mello has all but fallen asleep in his arms, drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness and clinging to L like a child, his pale face buried in the crook of L's neck, and, very gently, Matt reaches toward him and picks at the edge of the sheet with his fingers. He draws the thing back, tugging at the fabric delicately and sliding it off Mello's naked body, and then they lower him down into the water. Matt watches L's slender, white figure bent over the edge as he begins running the sponge against Mello's back, and very quietly, he says,

"I'll do his hair."

He's done that before and he knows how to do it, and also ever since Mello let him do it last time, he's kind of wanted to do it again.

He pulls his sleeves up to his elbows and joins L at the side of the tub, but before he reaches for what looks like it might be a shampoo container, he can't help catching a glimpse of L's face, and he thinks there's something very strange about the way he's gazing out like that.

L seems expressionless as always, and maybe it's just because it's been a long night and they seem to have come closer to L than they ever have before, but Matt could swear that there's a disturbing sense of emptiness and melancholy and he's thinking about something, he's definitely thinking about something.

He allows the yellow strands of Mello's hair to float and gather into his hands as he brings them under the water, never taking his eyes off L.

_Tonight we do this with love_.

How awful it must have been.

If Kira is dead, he tells himself, just who do you think had to take his life?

And if Kira is alive, then just who had to take it upon himself to justify that he let him live because of love?

_I don't think Light ever loved anyone._

That must have been awful, too.

"L, I'm hot," comes the faint murmur from Mello's lips, and Matt watches as the white fingers brush against Mello's cheek, and then L leans in to kiss his forehead, very softly and kindly, and Matt helps L hold him out of the water so they could wash his shoulders and his chest.

"Let's add some cold water," L says quietly and reaches for the handle, and Mello leans back against Matt's arms and, delirious with fatigue, he smiles and laughs quietly.

Matt turns toward him.

"What's up, boss," he says softly, leaning down to wrap his arms around Mello's wet shoulders, and Mello bites his lower lip as he allows L to lift one of his feet out of the water so he could wash it.

"Mmm..Matty," Mello croons, and he leans his head backward, looking up at the younger boy with a wicked smile, and then his right hand comes out of the water and traces a wet line across Matt's lips.

Matt can't help it. He'd do anything for Mello when he smiles at him like that.

He leans down to kiss Mello, and two wet hands reach up to lower his head closer, and, mumbling against the boy's lips, Matt asks Mello how he's feeling.

"It hurts," Mello inhales slowly, neck stretching as his lips move against Matt's, and he still holds his head very close to his, "it hurts so good, Matty…"

And then Mello kisses him again, and he can feel Matt smile a little, but then Matt withdraws and looks down at the blonde.

"You liked that, didn't you," he breathes, and Mello nods, and Matt looks down at him for several moments without saying anything.

"Yeah, I think that's enough pain for a while," he adds.

"Other foot, please," L says, his voice quiet and polite as always. Of course, Mello complies, and now his gaze turns back to L, and he watches him in silence as he runs the sponge against the underside of his foot.

"L…" he says quietly, blue eyes fixed on the thin, white form bent over his legs.

"Hm?" L replies, not taking his eyes off Mello's foot.

"Thank you for carrying me."

The long hands stop in place, and, after several moments, L turns his gaze toward Mello.

"You are welcome, Mello," he says, and then returns to washing his feet.

There is silence for several moments as Mello watches him, and then he speaks again,

"L…?"

"Yes…?"

"You're so beautiful, L…"

He can see L smiling behind his long, black hair, and then the older boy turns toward him and actually laughs.

"Is that what Mello thinks?"

He asks, going back to washing his ankles, and then his calf.

Mello nods.

"That's a very sweet thing of Mello to say."

"And we really like you."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah."

"We?"

"Matt, too."

Matt nudges Mello's shoulder, "Mello…!"

"I know you do, Matty," and before Matt can reply, Mello continues, "I know you like watching L do that."

Matt laughs nervously, running a wet hand through his hair and really wishing he had his cigarettes with him.

Then Mello's face grows serious.

"But I know you love Kira," Mello continues, and Matt freezes, staring down at Mello and ready to defend him in case anything else happens.

"And I know you won't tell me anything else about him, but—"

L turns his head ever so slightly in Mello's direction, fingers moving slowly along the underside of his leg,

"—but I'm gonna find out."

Silence.

"Is that so," L says at last, seemingly unaffected.

"But you already know that," Mello continues, "don't you."

L wraps his fingers around the wet skin of Mello's calf and brings it to his cheek, and, leaning against it, he replies,

"That's right, Mello."

Matt watches in amusement, the palm of his hand pressed against his mouth with his thumb on one side and the rest of his fingers on the other.

"You're such a troublemaker, Mello," he sighs, but, truth be told, he's very curious, himself.

_To be continued…_


	21. Chapter 21

Mello's blue eyes dart from L to Matt and back as the two go on washing him, Matt fully dressed and L completely naked, and they exchange words and sentences between them that Mello can and sometimes can't hear.

They are polite and kind to one another, L quiet and gentle and Matt somewhat more bold but still shy, and Mello watches curiously, a bit breathless when Matt says something that makes L look up and smile and laugh just a little and brush his dark hair behind his ear.

He reaches his arms backward, feeling the dull pain of many marks and scratches pulled with the stretching of skin, and he likes that he's naked. He's usually naked—almost by force of habit, upon his entrance through the front door to their apartment, he begins unzipping and unlacing and undoing the various fastening binds of his clothes, almost as if they were in his way all day until that time. And even when Matt says nothing, his awareness is unmistakable, and he has all but gotten used to the firm sensation of Mello's naked hip against his cheek when, in the midst of a phone conversation, the older boy would walk past Matt as he sat on the couch, hand sliding under the bony ridge of his chin just to press his face against him for the briefest of moments, as if in a cruel reminder that this is what Mello is too busy to do with him right then.

He smiles inwardly, fingertips sliding across the hard, straight length of his shoulder as he watches the two, until at last Matt catches his glance from the corner of his eye. He says something to L before placing the sponge down on the side of the tub and then approaches Mello again. Matt's long fingers travel through the wet strands of Mello's hair and his pointed nose brushes past the boy's temple against his ear, where, lips moving wetly, he murmurs, "Mello, you're so fucking sexy," and "do you know what I'm gonna do to you when we get back home," and, fingertip pressing lightly against the blonde's lip, "are you awake enough to understand?"

And L has to stop running the sponge against Mello's arm because now Matt has moved closer and Mello pulls him in, lips moving against Matt's finger and eyes rolling up in a mockery of innocence as he murmurs, "So what are you gonna do to me when we get home? You wanna fuck me, Matt?"

He's very tired and all but covered in scratches and marks, but he nevertheless pulls him closer in and urges him farther, "you wanna do it to me now, don't you," he whispers, "and if I asked you to, you would," his tongue reaches out to run briefly against Matt's lip, "isn't that right?"

"Yeah, that's right," Matt replies, and the tail end of his words comes muffled because he's already kissing Mello, palm stretched out against the wall behind them as he seizes his mouth. Wet arms come all around Matt's back, drenching his shirt and pulling him closer until he's partway in the water with Mello, and soon his hair is wet and his chest too and finally Mello pulls him in entirely, and it's a horrible mess now with water and soap everywhere.

And soon it isn't just kissing, it's practically sex with clothes on, until, breathless and laughing, Mello withdraws at last, tearing away and tilting his head back to breathe.

Anyone would have gotten a kick out of watching them devour one another like that—anyone, that is, but L, Mello knows this, and, sadly, he understands that the reason the older boy gazes at them in wide-eyed speculation, finger at his lips, is not from perverse curiosity but rather—oh, it's all too obvious—rather because it makes him think of something else.

Mello knows that L still has a meeting after this and that, really, they haven't got much time left, but there's a part of him that doesn't want to let go, and, sliding closer to L, he reaches one hand out from under the water and brushes away the moist strands that have fallen in his eyes. L's white hands slide away from his hips as Mello's arms come wetly around his waist and he watches quietly as the blonde presses his head against his abdomen. Mello knows L is smiling as the long, thin fingers graze through his hair, and also he knows that both he and Matt are wondering whether—whether at that moment—whether right then maybe Mello reminds him of Light.

Light had been just a little younger than Mello is now.

Was he as clever as Mello, Matt wonders, was he as dangerous, and was he as beautiful, and just what was it about him that piqued L's interest this much?

And did he and L really—did they—what was it like when—

Matt's gaze meets L's and, still deep in thought, the older boy smiles quietly and motions for him to come closer.

"Like this," he tells him, gently peeling Mello's wet arms away from around his narrow waist, and Matt watches as, smiling behind his dark hair, L leans down and arranges Mello with his back to himself, "we were bound wrist-to-wrist, so—"

He holds Mello's arm to demonstrate, and he knows this is something Mello would be particularly curious about, so, as he brushes yellow strands out of the way, he explains, "it was something I did to keep him under observation," and Matt knows that now, more than anything, Mello would like to be bound to L this way, too.

But L raises his eyes toward Matt again. "you want to know what he liked," he says quietly, and both of them nod, so L motions for Matt to come closer still, and, still holding Mello in place before him, L leans forth from behind Mello so that his lips almost brush against his temple and, eyes darting toward Matt, he mouths, "like this."

Matt watches L's soft hair cascade downward against Mello's wet shoulder as he leans forth, long fingers wrapping around Mello's arm as his lips brush against his neck, and Matt can see that L is biting him very slowly. This was an invitation, and, watching the corners of Mello's mouth curve upward in satisfaction, Matt comes closer, and, reaching toward Mello's neck from the other side, he brushes his teeth tentatively against the wet skin there.

Out on the edge of the tub, Mello's toes fan out as his feet flex very slowly, and Matt can hear the half-chuckle escape from his throat as the muscles in his neck tighten.

This goes on for several minutes, and, yeah, Matt knows Mello likes this, and when at last they both withdraw, the blonde exhales at last, and eyes them with unquestionable arousal as if asking, "and then what?"

"Then, like this," L continues, motioning with his finger for Matt to follow, and, leaning down even farther over Mello's chest, L reaches out with his tongue against the sternum and down to the skin over the pectorals, so Matt follows him and does this, too, and when, leaning upside-down over him, L stops in order to bring his lips to Mello's mouth, Matt watches this as well, and even before the older boy lets go he practically fights him to kiss Mello.

"Oh, fuck—" Mello breathes hoarsely, red all over and alive with arousal and one hand reaching out deliberately to touch himself, and, gazing at Matt from Mello's lips, L smiles quietly, "and that's about when he did that, too."

It must have been very nice to watch, Matt thinks, because not everything made L smile with this much amusement.

He watches L reach under the water, white fingers sliding against Mello's wrist and entwining through his hand, and blue eyes gaze in strange desperation as Matt does the same, and then at last L leans far enough over the tub that the dark strands of his hair come submerged in the bath water, and, undone and utterly defeated, Mello releases his hand and stares in mute astonishment as, stretching his thin torso across the edge of the tub, L actually reaches under the water and takes his member in his mouth.

Lips dry and parted, Mello does nothing for several moments but stare blindly ahead, fingers curling tightly against the porcelain edge of the tub, and when at last his thoughts return, he all but tells himself aloud to please, for the love of God, hold back from coming right then and there in L's mouth.

_L is perfect! He's sacred! He—he can't—he didn't—he can't—!_

He doesn't take his eyes off the older boy when, several moments later, he withdraws at last, dark hair heavy and dripping with water. Then, of course, it's Matt who does it, and eventually it dawns on Mello that, more likely than not, he's going to come when one of them is doing it, and that, more than likely, that's really the whole point. Almost just as fascinating, however, is the curious way that L stares at Matt while he's doing it, finger at his lips against an amused and practically childlike smile. It's really quite perverse in the most unsettling way.

When at last Matt rises out from under the water, red strands sticking wetly to his face and lips glistening white, L goes so far as to reach toward him with an outstretched finger and press down against his mouth, murmuring that it was very nice to watch and that Matt had done well, and Mello watches stunned as, gazing at him from the corner of his eye, L then brings his finger to his lips and licks at it briefly.

His dark eyes are still wide as he turns to Mello , and the blonde accepts him weakly, eyelashes fluttering shut as he feels L's finger slide past his lips and into his mouth and, very softly, the older boy whispers that, well, Light tasted different.

_To be continued…_


	22. Chapter 22

There was very long ago a time when L was away from Wammy's, and Mello, then only five years old, was sick with an ear infection. He had wanted so, so badly to stay with L that, despite warnings and careful explanations from Roger and the other staff, he had put up such a screaming, crying fight, that nobody really knew how to deal with him. The pain was part of it, of course, and also the fact that he hadn't slept properly in several days, and he was horrifically cranky and near impossible to care for.

L had actually come home a few days early specifically for this reason, and was faced with one of the caretakers, who, overworked and tired, turned to him with the boy in his arms, all but sighing in relief to see the young man's face. L was fifteen then, but already quite preoccupied and busy, and when he turned to them, he was still carrying a large stack of disheveled papers in his wiry hands.

Mello, who was wrapped in a blanket in the man's arms, gazed up at him, his little face puffy and red from crying, and he was all sticky mucus and tears and sheer misery, and immediately he reached his arms out toward L.

Without a word, L put down the papers in his hands and took him from the caretaker, adjusting the small body in his arms, and Mello entwined himself like a monkey around the wiry shoulders, the sticky skin of his face nestled in the crook of L's neck.

"He's been so miserable," the caretaker said, tucking the blanket around him, and L gazed down at him quietly, and, after a long pause, he replied, "it must really hurt."

It did, and Mello didn't calm down then. He kept screaming and crying even after L took him up to his room and gave him a bath and a hot water bottle and let him sleep in his bed. It really was very tiring for L, who understood that Mello cried because it hurt, but, really, he wanted to get on with his work.

"Mihael is being a real pain," he said simply, putting his pen down and kneeling beside the bed. Mello glared back with all the petulant fury a child can muster and sniffled against the pillow. He was a small, angry lump huddled toward the head end of the bed, silken yellow locks scattered on the rubber end of the hot water bottle.

"Are you angry because it hurts?" L asked.

"No," came the reply, simple and disturbingly mature.

L gazed back, unblinking for several moments, before speaking up again. "Why, then?"

"You'll go away again."

Silence.

"This is true," L said at last.

"I want to go with you."

"Is that so."

Mello nodded.

More silence.

"This is really what Mihael wants."

Mello nodded again.

"I'll think about it."

---

Now that Mello has all but fallen asleep in his arms against the edge of the tub, L looks up at Matt, his slender fingers still brushing against the side of Mello's face. "He's passed out," he says gently, "you'll need to take him home."

Matt nods. Completely soaked, he steps out of the tub and reaches for one of the towels on the rack, the water dripping from his wet clothes and quickly forming a puddle on the floor.

L watches this for several moments and finally suggests that he bring them something dry to wear. He asks Matt to watch Mello lest he slipped farther under the water, and, rising to his feet, he leaves the room. When he returns, Matt has stripped completely and is partway through drying himself, and L hands him a dry stack of clothes. L has dressed, as well, and Matt knows that he has a meeting soon, so he tries to be quick about things. He finishes dressing and, careful not to wake Mello up, he kneels beside the tub and gently begins drying the boy's hair.

He begins reaching into the tub to draw Mello out, but then L asks him to wait, and, turning to the rack, he unfolds another towel and asks Matt to hold his arms out. After L has laid the towel between Matt's arms, he reaches down very carefully, and, one hand behind Mello's back and one under his knees, he lifts the boy out of the water. Mello is practically weightless when L brings him into Matt's arms, and, very gently, he lets him go, and Matt watches as L's long fingers tuck the towel around him.

"That should be okay," the older boy says, and, after observing them for a few seconds to make sure, he motions for Matt to follow. It's night already by the time they reach the elevator, Matt can tell because it's dark outside the window at the end of the hall, and, showing him out, L asks one last time if Matt will be okay carrying Mello.

Matt nods and remembers to thank L again before they part ways, L taking the elevator back up and Matt turning toward the main exit.

_I'll see you in the morning._

It's still warm out and Mello is getting a bit heavier in Matt's arms as he walks toward the car, and then stops because there's an AM/PM nearby and he thinks he should buy some cigarettes—and, gazing down at the boy in his arms—maybe also chocolate for Mello.

Mello is so fucking adorable, really. He lies sound asleep, thin arms wrapped limp around Matt's neck and long hair gradually wetting his shirt, and Matt thinks he doesn't mind at all having to hold him and carry him like this, and, really, he doesn't even mind carrying him into the minimart, wet and asleep and naked and covered only by the towel.

He wakes up a bit when they're at the register and Matt is asking the woman behind the counter for a certain brand of cigarettes, and when, sleepy and disoriented, blue eyes gaze up questioningly at Matt, the younger boy looks back and murmurs, "I'm getting you some chocolate, too—okay?"

"Yeah—okay," Mello replies, leaning his head down and drifting off again. Without batting an eye, Matt simply smiles at the saleswoman and motions toward the Hershey bars on the counter.

When at last he reaches their apartment, Matt leans back as he arranges Mello in his arms, one hand fiddling with the lock until it comes undone, and, kicking it open, he walks in, cigarette in his mouth and the nylon shopping bag dangling from in-between his fingers.

"Okay…" he sighs, because, really, Mello has begun to get heavy, and he makes the last few strides quick as he paces down the hall and into the bedroom, finally lowering his friend down onto the mattress. Very carefully, he unravels the boy's limbs apart from the moist towel, and, tossing it on the floor, he begins wrapping Mello in the blanket instead.

He sits on the edge of the bed for a few moments and gazes down at Mello before returning to the living room to go through the mail and put away the stuff he bought.

"Well, I hope you had fun today," he says quietly, brushing wet strands from the boy's face and tucking them behind his ear, but when he leans down to kiss him, he knows that this isn't going to calm his friend down. Far from it – he knows that now Mello has a new interest and a new mission.

_I know you won't tell me, but I'm gonna find out._

Light.

"Whatever," Matt whispers as, withdrawing from Mello, his lips brush softly against the boy's mouth, "you know you're mine."

_To be continued…_


	23. Chapter 23

Naturally, the first resource Mello turned to was the internet. He already knew plenty about the Kira case from having followed along closely back when the chase was still at large, but now then, let's again focus on the specifics.

Kira—Light Yagami—was from Japan. He killed thousands of criminals via complex and still poorly understood means, having spawned hundreds of research studies ranging in fields anywhere from criminology to ethics to sociology to psychology to cardiovascular physiology and neurobiology and even to quantum mechanics and string theory, resulting in an interesting array of suggested methods by which the supposed "Death Notes" may have worked.

After an intricate pursuit lead by the FBI and the Japanese police, he was ultimately captured by the detective known as L, and, after some debate, tried conclusively by the United Nations as an international mass criminal.

Oh, it wasn't pretty, and, what's more, for all the publicity and news coverage, the ultimate verdict was somehow disturbingly vague. What ultimately happened to Kira, Mello wondered, and he may have wondered this for several weeks more if Matt hadn't pointed him to the article that said quite clearly that Kira was executed in May of 2005.

"Oh…" Mello says, taking the journal from his friend slowly, and it seems to Matt that he's practically mourning the loss of a friend. His blue eyes dart left to right across the page with a mixture of astonishment and disappointment, but there it is, right there in print.

After several minutes more, Mello puts the article down, gazing off into space seemingly deep in speculation. So, that's it then. No secret investigation, no further secrets about L's love life, no seeing for himself how much like himself Kira really was or how much like Matt he really looked.

"Come on," Matt says, nudging his friend by the shoulder, "those of us who are still alive have to get some chores done."

"Yeah, okay," Mello replies with a little smirk, tossing the article onto the coffee table and rising off the couch.

Matt smiles. He's cute, dressed in a T-shirt and jeans as he walked into the kitchen and pulled apart the cupboard doors under the sink where they kept the various cleaning products and detergents.

Not unlike most young people who grew up with others cleaning after them, Mello and Matt were not particularly organized or neat guys, and, really their typical idea of 'cleaning' was running the vacuum cleaner between the various piles of clothes and papers on the bedroom floor, or reaching far enough into the space between the wall and the desk to fetch out trash that didn't quite make the trash can, or, in Matt's case, running the tips of his fingers or maybe even a tissue along the dust that had collected on the leaves of his computer fan ("yuck," he would say after inspecting his fingers and then wiping them on the side of his trousers).

There was even once a time when, astonished, Mello found an impressively repulsive, oily contraption glued right there to the underside of the kitchen cabinet, and when, moaning in disgust, he reached with one quick motion to rip it off and throw it away (or burn it, or hurl it out the window), down came Matt's gloved hand on his wrist, and, goggles safely in place, the boy shook his head, "No."

"The hell?" Mello spouted, disturbed and staring.

"That's the thing for killing fruit flies. That I made."

"The hell?" it came again, "we don't have fruit flies." _We don't even have fruit!_

"That's cause of the thing for killing fruit flies."

Mello grimaced, now starting to become annoyed. "This thing stinks. And it's gross. And it's really sick, Matt, seriously, get rid of it, this, ugh, Matt, it's—_evil_."

Matt didn't flinch. "You need something evil to catch something else evil."

What followed was a verbal fight that lead to a physical fight that ultimately lead to sex, but, at the end of the day, the thing for killing fruit flies stayed safely glued to the underside of the kitchen cabinet.

Really, though, it's been too long since they've tidied up, and Matt thinks the last time they actually put an honest effort into cleaning anything was at least four months ago, so, lip curled in disgust around the cigarette in his mouth, he pulls out the bucket and bleach container and what looked like it might once have been part of a mop.

"Do we have like…a mop?" he calls out to Mello as he puts the nylon wrap of a rubber glove container to his teeth, and, turning around from behind the narrow end of the vacuum cleaner, Mello replies, "I think we might have had a mop at some point."

It all started in Japan. That's where all the criminals started dying. Almost always of heart attacks. Mello bends to his knees over the bathtub, shaking the bleach powder onto the once-white surface below. Then the FBI came into Japan. But then information started becoming vague. The agents died – but how many were there? Something about what went on in the police – but this information was kept very secret—because nobody really knew how Kira found out information.

He presses his lips together in effort as he kneels over the edge of the tub, gloved hands scrubbing at the white-yellow powder with a wet sponge.

Something about other nations submitting to Kira. Something about the police force dwindling. Something about Kira being more than one person. But no specifics, no numbers, no dates, no names.

"_What—was he like?"_

"_Very sharp. Political. Manipulative. Seductive."_

Putting the sponge away at last, Mello begins running the water along the bottom surface of the tub.

He cringes a bit; Mello is a tough guy who can take things, and, certainly, he can take a few bruises and scratches, but now and again when he moves, at times it still does hurt, and, in a way, that's nice, because, in a way, every now and again when he thinks of that day with L, he can still feel himself becoming helplessly aroused.

He stops in place, long hair sliding over his shoulders and the showerhead still running in his hand, and, staring down into the tub, he's suddenly filled with surreal intensity as he thinks back of that day. L touching him, and the way he spoke to Matt, the things that transpired and the long, tight restraining binds, metal and hard leather fully alive and real all around his naked form—and L who turned to him at last, real and coldly genuine as all at once he hit him hard.

_I'm sorry, Mello—but that's confidential._

All of a sudden, blue eyes dart frozen to the wall tiles ahead.

_No specifics, no numbers, no dates, no names._

They wouldn't give out that sort of information so readily.

_Very sharp. Political. Manipulative. Seductive._

A brilliant mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Who else in the world holds such a beautifully strategic position to understand crime—really, who could better answer all those unknowns in criminology, sociology, and psychology—than the criminal mastermind, himself?

You need something evil to catch something else evil.

Oh—Kira isn't dead.

_To be continued…_


	24. Chapter 24

Mello is still staring ahead in astonishment when Matt's hand comes from behind him, reaching toward the faucet to turn it off. Then, very gently, his hands travel to the jagged tip of Mello's rubber gloves and Matt peels them off slowly, tossing them into the tub. He parts Mello's hair and leans forward to kiss the nape of his neck, and he kisses him for a long time before speaking up.

His eyes dart to the bind marks still visible on the skin of Mello's neck and shoulders, and, running his fingers gently along the fading bruises, he mouths, "Does it still hurt?"

The older boy sighs, eyes closing at last as he leans back, and, swallowing hard, he replies,

"Sometimes, yeah…"

Sometimes it still hurts, and, God, Mello loves that sometimes it still hurts, because sometimes he thinks he can almost feel L's long fingers on him again, and sometimes he gazes at himself in the mirror, naked, looking over his shoulder at the bruise marks as his slender hands slide down the curve of his arm.

"Come here," Matt whispers, pulling Mello back toward him, and Mello allows him to pull off his top, and then Matt has to stop for a moment, because there are still so many marks on Mello's back that haven't healed. He thinks about this every night—every night when Mello has fallen asleep and Matt gazes at his friend's naked back, long and beautiful and slender and still covered with bruises and scratches, and, every night, Matt runs his fingers along them, wondering when finally they'll heal.

Now he leans forward, sliding his hands along the bony angle of Mello's shoulders and down to his arms, and Mello knows from the sheer gentleness of it that Matt regards him like some kind of rare jewel, and he remains still as the hands slide to the small of his back and then comes the soft brush of hair against his spine as Matt leans in to kiss him there.

Mello is lovely, and Matt genuinely enjoys running his hands along his back and his hips and through his hair and he thinks to himself that Mello will probably let him screw him then—like that, hard and desperate, from behind, leaning over the side of the tub without Mello ever turning around to see his face—but that's not how Matt wants to do it.

Brushing the hair away from his shoulder, Matt leans in and, turning the boy's face toward him, he grins and reaches for the elastic on his goggles. He pulls them off and kisses Mello briefly.

"Hey," Matt says with a gentle smile, and he is beautiful in that moment, thin and elegant and somehow very childlike, green eyes sparkling behind long red hair.

"Hey," Mello replies, and it makes Matt grow quiet for a few moments as he marvels at how Mello is the kind of guy whose entire sex appeal can somehow reverberate in one spoken syllable.

Matt's eyelashes flicker a few times before he speaks again, drawing closer as almost to kiss the other boy, and, one hand running softly through Mello's hair, he mouths, "First, I'm going to pick you up—"

He closes his eyes and kisses Mello,

"—and take you into the bedroom…"

Placing his goggles on the bathroom floor, he brings his other hand to Mello's hair as well and brushes the strands away from both sides of his face,

"…and then,"

He kisses him again,

"…I'm going to take off your trousers, and—"

He tilts his head, continuing to kiss him,

"—and then we're gonna play Mario Golf…"

He smiles against Mello's lips, stifling a laugh as he holds his head hard in place because he knows the boy would otherwise withdraw so he can stare at him funny.

"…I'm kidding," he laughs softly, "We'll play that after I fuck you."

They're forehead to forehead, staring into each other's eyes, and Mello bites his lip in a way that makes Matt absolutely love him, because he knows he's holding back from laughing.

"I don't like Mario Golf," comes at last the reply.

"Sucks for you then, don't it?" Matt replies gently, and he kisses him again, and then, very slowly he withdraws, and, rising to his feet, he reaches his hand out to Mello.

When he takes it, Matt all but lifts him off the ground by the wrist, but instead he draws him into his arms and, for several moments, he merely holds him tight, burying his face in Mello's neck and inhaling as he closes his eyes.

The bathroom is a complete mess, with stuff thrown all over the counter and the various cleaning supplies scattered on the floor, the bath still foamy and unwashed and there's mildew growing here and there on the wall.

"Right now, I'm happy,"

Matt whispers, lips sliding against the cartilage shell of Mello's ear, and now he picks him up. He likes carrying Mello, because, despite his terrible diet, Mello is always very light and practically weightless in his arms. This has been true since they were children and Matt would lift him so Mello could reach whatever it was that they got stuck up in a tree or whatever dessert from the top shelf of the pantry they weren't supposed to have or so he could gaze through a high window to spy on whatever girl might be undressing.

"See anything good?" Matt would ask, arms tight around Mello's legs as he lifted him higher, and Mello would ask him to take a few steps closer to the wall, and then, after several moments of quiet, focused attention, he would report that he thinks she might change into pajamas sometime soon, but he can't tell for sure.

They were around fourteen then, and they were both curious about sex, and about girls and about wanking, and at the time neither of them had any experience with any of these things, so they tried things with each other, anywhere from kissing to masturbation and even to oral sex, and then, one day when they were studying in Mello's room, Matt asked him if he knew how to put on a condom.

Mello, who had never even thought of such a thing, laughed at the question, but he realized his friend was serious when Matt told him that

"…I have some in my room."

That day, they locked the door and tentatively experimented with condoms for the first time, and also that was the first time they had sex.

"Does it hurt?" Matt had asked, and it was out of genuine curiosity, and even though Mello said that it did, and even though the whole thing was awkward and uncomfortable and overall bad, Matt thinks to this day that nobody else he ever slept with, woman or man, was ever as beautiful or as sexy as Mello looked beneath him that day.

"Come on, baby," he whispers against the boy's ear, "we're going in the bedroom."

Mello's long arms come around his friend's neck and they are kissing as Matt carries him there, walking slowly and nearly stumbling.

When he's reached the bedroom, Matt realizes that it's an even bigger mess than the rest of the apartment, with stuff all over the floor and all over the bed, and he stops with Mello in his arms, looking down at it and trying to figure out how to clear stuff off the bed before putting his friend down.

Mello isn't making it easier on him; his face buried in Matt's neck, he kisses and nips at the skin there, and Matt can hardly focus at all, let alone try to find a good place on the bed to lay Mello.

"Fuck it," he murmurs after this has gone on for a while, and he falls down on the mattress with the boy still in his arms, on top of papers and books and clothes and who knows what else, and as they continue kissing, they reach for the various items under and around them and toss them haphazardly to the floor, and also they try with some success to pull and tug at each other's clothes.

"Matt, you're wet,"

Mello says against the other boy's ear, red strands brushing soft and featherlike against his lips, and his hand is on him, just outside his briefs, and, kissing Mello's neck and the skin on his shoulder, Matt replies, "yeah?" and presses into Mello's hand as if by reflex.

Mello allows him to kiss his neck a bit longer before he finds his voice again, and, now sliding his hand under the white elastic, he murmurs back, "Yeah," and Matt smiles and exhales as the long digits brush past the slick member, and then, pulling his hand out, Mello brings his fingers against Matt's lip, pulling it down a little as he whispers,

"Wanna taste?"

He watches the glistening white trail down the corner of Matt's mouth and then his tongue reaching out to lick at—and then green eyes dart toward Mello, and Matt takes the boy's hand in both of his and brings it to his mouth.

"Are you wet, too?" he mumbles around the long fingers, and his voice is soft and low and breathy, and Mello thinks he's hard just because of that.

"Wanna touch me and find out?"

he replies, now kissing back, but Matt answers,

"No," and, cradling Mello's face, he presses the boy closer to him, "I wanna watch you do it."

There comes a low chuckle issuing from Mello's lips, low and throaty as he presses closer,

"Matt, you pervert."

And he kisses him a few times more before withdrawing and, brushing the hair away from his face, he rises to his knees.

Matt is already touching himself when Mello begins undoing his fly, hair swinging forth and covering his face as he tilts his head down, and, hooking his thumbs at the sides of his trousers, he looks up at Matt, pulling then down slowly.

He most definitely is wet, and hard and aroused, and, swallowing slowly, Matt lets go of his own member and starts coming closer to Mello, but the older boy stops him.

"What is it exactly that you wanna do?" he asks, one hand at his mouth and the other hanging limp at his side, and, looking up questioningly, Matt replies,

"I wanna touch you."

Mello looks up with feigned curiosity,

"I thought you said you wanted to watch me do it."

"Is that what I said?" Matt asks, eyes darting from Mello's face down to his member and back. He's still moving closer, but Mello stops him again, hand outstretched and reaching in his hair.

"Yeah, so watch, don't touch."

Matt stops in place, the tip of his tongue already sliding past his lips to lap at him, but he doesn't. He licks his lips instead and looks up at Mello, partly smiling in frustration.

"Okay," he says at last, drawing back and absently beginning to touch himself again.

Mello laughs and then he begins to move closer to Matt, and, holding the hard member in one hand, he brings it very close to Matt's face, just barely brushing it against his lips, and, exhaling slowly, Matt gazes at it and then up at Mello, and he doesn't really need to say anything, because Mello knows exactly how hard this is making him.

Mello strokes himself very slowly, the tip just barely brushing against Matt's lips, and it greatly amuses him to watch Matt fight back the urge to lick at him. This goes on for a few minutes until, at one point, Matt can't hold back anymore, and, exhaling hard, he reaches forth and runs the full length of his tongue along the slick underside, and then he draws back and desperately takes the end of it into his mouth, and he thinks he's never tasted anything so good in his life.

But then he remembers that he's not supposed to do that, so, heart beating fast, he draws back quietly, lips glistening wet. He rolls his eyes to look up at Mello, who is biting his lip to keep from crying out, hair partly covering his face.

"Was that good for you, Matty?" he mouths, one hand brushing through his friend's hair.

"Yeah," comes the reply, dry and desperate as Matt begins to stroke himself again, harder now, and he tilts his head to kiss the palm of Mello's hand.

"You want more?"

"Can I?"

Mello strokes himself slowly, and Matt watches with strange fascination as the liquid white runs moist against his long fingers.

"Will you fuck me after?"

"God, yeah, yes, I'll fuck you," Matt replies, and he has to stop touching himself, because he thinks he might come right then and there if he kept going any longer.

Mello considers, looking down as he continues running his hand against himself, and then, finally, he murmurs,

"Cmere."

_To be continued… _


	25. Chapter 25

Mello gazes down at Matt, still stroking himself as he watches the younger boy crawl closer. When Matt reaches him, his eyes roll up to meet Mello's, and it's a look of pure admiration, and bringing his hands to Mello's thighs, he exhales softly. He tilts his head forward and quietly presses his lips to the slick fingers loosely wrapped around the member, kissing them slowly and lingering to taste them.

He then withdraws, and, very gently, takes hold of Mello's trousers from both sides, and he begins pulling them farther down.

"You're so beautiful when you're naked," he whispers when Mello shifts as to help him pull them off, and after Matt tosses the leather pants to the floor, he turns his attention back to his friend. He runs his palms along the soft flesh of Mello's thighs down to his knees and back up, and then he leans forth to kiss his flat stomach. He smiles up at him and, winking, he pushes him backward, and Mello falls softly against the mattress, gasping quietly as he lands on the sheet beneath.

"I'll kill you," Mello whispers very lightly, and, leaning down to kiss his thigh, Matt smiles up at him from behind his hair,

"Yeah?"

He runs his tongue visibly against the soft flesh and then farther inward, and, nodding, Mello replies, "yeah."

"I better watch it then," Matt murmurs, and, palms tight against Mello's thighs, he pulls the boy closer to him in one hard motion.

"Damn it, Matt…!"

Matt laughs quietly, burying his head between Mello's thighs, breath hot as he reaches out to tongue the small opening, and, hissing through clenched teeth, Mello whispers,

"Matt, you dirty boy,"

Matt withdraws after a few moments, gazing down at the wet skin and pressing against it slowly with one finger, "L was pretty big, wasn't he," he murmurs, leaning in to lick at him again, "you had a lot of abuse that night."

Mello gasps, now lying entirely on his back, one leg gradually sliding around Matt's shoulder and down his back.

"It was—"

"Yeah, it was fine, wasn't it," Matt replies, drawing back a bit and licking his lips slowly. He brushes his hair behind one ear, and, pressing against Mello with his finger very gently, he asks,

"Does it still hurt?"

There comes a soft moan as Mello's fingers brush very softly against Matt's hair, and they linger there for a moment,

"A little…"

"Aww," Matt replies quietly, and he presses his lips down to kiss the soft flesh below, "I'll have to be very gentle then."

"Don't worry about it."

He can feel Matt smiling against him, "You wannit rough?"

"I thought you were going to suck me off, Matt."

"I changed my mind."

"Bastard."

Matt smiles and leans down to run his tongue against the opening again,

"I thought you wanted me to fuck you."

"Yeah, so bloody do it already."

Matt pulls his head back and raises his head up enough to gaze down at Mello. His friend returns a look of pure frustration, yellow hair fanned out on the sheet beneath and his slender legs folded elegantly over Matt's shoulders. Mello gazes back at him, and when Matt reaches with the back of his hand to wipe the wetness from all around his mouth, Mello stop him, smiling as he says hoarsely,

"Don't."

He pulls Matt closer to him and then kisses him very slowly, "you look hot like that.

"Yeah?" Matt replies, leaning to kiss him again as he rises to his knees, slowly pressing the head of his member against the slick opening.

And then he moves in with one hard motion, turning his head aside and inhaling through clenched teeth.

He turns back slowly to look at Mello, pulling out and then moving back in again, fingers sliding lightly against his leg,

"God, that's good," he whispers, and then he laughs quietly, and Mello raises an eyebrow in amusement,

"Better than screwing L?"

Matt buries his head against Mello's leg and smiles as he kisses the skin there,

"Different," he whispers, thinking that the question sounds so strange, and he thrusts against Mello again.

"You know, I…" he trails off, slender body arching downward as he leans to kiss Mello's lips, "I don't want this to hurt. For you."

Mello could begin to protest and for what may be the hundredth time reiterate that he can take it, but he doesn't, and instead, he merely kisses back, inhaling sharply as he feels Matt slide farther in.

"It doesn't hurt," he lies, and Matt doesn't believe him, because he knows that if it didn't, Mello wouldn't enjoy it this much.

"I'm glad," he replies, knowing that saying anything else would only irritate his friend.

But he nevertheless continues as gently as he knows how, moving softly and slowly and never stopping to kiss Mello on his forehead and his lips and his ear and his neck and, when really it's become too painful and dry, he stops, and despite whimpers and protests of annoyance, he withdraws and, winking at Mello, obediently returns to licking at him again.

"Why are you being so nice," Mello asks, staring down suspiciously, and, running his tongue against his lips slowly, Matt thinks before replying.

"I thought this whole thing was kinda too much," he murmurs.

"This whole thing?"

Matt raises his head from between Mello's thighs and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I know you like being tied up and…and…."

_and abused to the point of bruising and slapped unconscious by the guy you idolize—_

"…and stuff,"

he continues, swallowing slowly,

"but I think…I think it got to the point that…"

_that, oh, God, Mello, it hurt more to watch that than it would to be beaten, myself—_

"…that you might like, you know, for me to…"

…_to freaking save you from your own sick, masochistic fantasies and protect you forever and ever and ever like I've always wanted to—_

"…to be nice."

And with that, Matt smiles and bats his eyelashes sarcastically, and with the sign of approval that is the dismissive roll of Mello's eyes, he returns to licking at him, and Mello's fingers run gently through his hair,

"Yeah okay," Mello replies, "be nice."

Before Matt returns to screwing him, then, he runs his tongue quickly along his hard member, passing over Mello's long fingers that are loosely entwined there, and then he whispers in his ear that, if Mello wants, he can stop screwing him at any time if Mello would rather that he sucked him off.

Because he changed his mind.

Again.

_To be continued…_


	26. Chapter 26

It started out slow and gentle, but both Mello and Matt know that _slow and gentle_ can't last long between the two of them. So before long, it was mattress-spring-squeaking, frame-beam-rattling, wall-foundation-degrading, raw, perverse, wet, loud, dirty sex that left them both exhausted and hoarse-voiced and sweaty and in a great deal of pain as at last they collapsed on the mattress.

And also, both Mello and Matt know that, between the two of them, it can't simply end there. So, exhausted and hoarse-voiced and sweaty, Matt rises from the mattress and begins crawling toward his older counterpart, breathing hard as again ensues the battle for dominance, and neither of them care that again Matt wins or that, partway through the next go, Mello somehow manages to kick him off and, practically dripping with sweat, manages for once to top him.

Matt lets him do it, and he lets him pull hard at his hair and mouth inaudible profanities as he thrusts into him from behind, until finally he, too, has had enough and throws him off, and then they begin fighting with each other, hitting and scratching and pulling hair as they roll wetly on the bed, and in a moment of triumph when at last Matt has managed successfully to hold his friend down, there comes the exasperating ringing of the phone. One long arm reaches out indignantly as Mello grasps the thing and then hurls it across the room, but even as it hits the wall, it doesn't break, and the ringing continues.

"God-fucking-damn it!" Matt hisses, and he actually stops for a moment to stare at it. Mello takes the opportunity to throw him off, and despite his ridiculously low body weight, he holds Matt down and has at him again.

This goes on for another hour or so, and it doesn't end until, somewhere on the stove top, Matt has managed to make Mello come in a way that will keep them from using the stove and, really, the kitchen in general, for the next several months.

"Fuck," Mello hisses when at last he catches his breath. He can barely move his legs, and, shaking, he brings them slowly over the side of the counter. Matt is leaning against the stove, head hanging down and wet strands of hair sticking to his forehead, and, breathing hard, he gazes at Mello.

"So much for cleaning," he says hoarsely, tongue running dryly across his lips.

Mello turns his head in his friend's direction. "Yeah," is all he says, finally hopping down to the floor.

"Ow," he adds suddenly, one hand rubbing at his right ass cheek where, Matt notes, there is the perfect, circular imprint of the stove top corner, and before he can even point and giggle, he hears Mello mumble, "yeah, shut up," as he meanders in the general direction of the shower.

Then he hears Mello call, "Fuck," as, upon entering the bathroom, he realizes that he never did finish cleaning the tub.

--

Several weeks pass, and then months, and as time goes by, it becomes increasingly clear to Mello that, even if Kira is alive, it will be very difficult to find out anything about him.

Certainly he won't get any information from L.

He continues doing projects for L, and, really, he greatly enjoys working with him – even more now than before, and, as always, L shows him nothing but kindness. L doesn't mention Kira again, and Mello doesn't ask, but Mello knows that, somehow, L knows exactly what Mello is thinking and that he knows all too well that Mello would love nothing more than to find some clue about Kira.

Mello, of course, loves puzzles, and even more so, he loves showing L that he can solve puzzles, so he doesn't ask.

And L is L, so he doesn't tell.

It is during another not-slow-and-gentle sex session, then, that, one day in the mid-afternoon, there comes a ring at the door.

"Ignore it," Mello says hoarsely from beneath Matt's shoulder, and they do, but whoever it is is very persistent and the ringing comes again, and then a third time, and, finally, Matt has had it, and, carrying Mello hot and sweaty and naked in his arms, he walks to the door, and, leaning close, he calls out,

"GO. AWAY."

In return, there comes a woman's voice,

"FBI. Open up."

Mello and Matt exchange bewildered glances. "Oh, fuck," Mello whispers. They stare at each other for several seconds until they're brought back to reality when again the doorbell rings.

"J—just a minute," Matt murmurs, and neither of them says a word as, arm shaking, he brings his fingers to the lock and flips it down.

Mello still in his arms, he takes several steps back as the handle twists open by itself. Naked and wet and disheveled, they both stare at the woman who walks in, entirely unfazed as she closes the door behind her, FBI badge dangling open from one hand.

"What the hell do you want," Mello says, dumbfounded, when at last he finds his voice.

Matt's eyes dart to her badge and back: FBI Special Agent Naomi Misora.

"I know what you're trying to do," she says, "and I know what you're looking for."

Very slowly, Matt lets Mello down.

"Your personal relations with L put you in quite the special position to find out information," she continues, "but he won't tell you anything about it. Will he."

Matt and Mello stand frozen, eyes darting toward each other with a mixture of fear and very great interest.

Under any other circumstances, Mello would immediately reach for his gun, but they both feel it: _she's on their side._

"N…no…he wouldn't," Mello says very slowly, gradually coming to understand that this woman already knows who they are. She bloody found out where they live. Well – she is after all in the FBI.

And this is clearly about—

"Would you mind sitting down?" he asks, and, quickly, Matt adds, "and can we—you know—get dressed?"

She gazes across the living room, which, like the rest of the apartment, is a disheveled mess of clothes and papers and magazines and God knows what else, and, finally, she nods.

"Yeah, okay," she replies, walking toward the sofa, where she pushes aside a mess of game controller cables and partly-eaten food.

Mello stares at her for a few more seconds before, following Matt, he goes into the bedroom to put something on.

--

Some time later, they are talking with her in the living room. Yes, she knows who they are.

Yes, she works closely with L.

Yes, they have an interest in common.

And yes—

Kira is alive.

They don't speak aloud; they speak in written words scribbled in pen on the back of pieces of paper.

And she doesn't tell them everything, but what she tells them is very interesting.

Even after Kira was tried for mass murder the likes of which no single person has committed before, he was, in fact, kept alive for the single, fascinating reason that, other than L, there had never been a detective with powers of deduction like his.

So, cuffed and shackled and drugged and blindfolded and restrained behind an intricate series of locks under maximum security and surveillance, Light Yagami is, in fact, alive, and his thoughts are inquired of him on difficult cases.

Much more interesting, however, is the fact that he does, after all, communicate with L during some of those cases, through a closely-monitored, high-security, fingerprint-enabled fiber optic device, and while they do not communicate directly and without close monitoring from security on both sides, they do, ultimately, get to work together by these means.

"Why are you telling us this," Matt asks at last, tapping the glowing end of a cigarette against a mostly empty cup of coffee.

"She doesn't like him" Mello answers, not taking his eyes off Misora. He doesn't bother communicating by writing this time." You want us to kill him. Don't you."

She says nothing, but her dark eyes dart from Mello to Matt and back. Yes. She does. He killed her fiancé. He almost killed her, too.

She'll help them get to him—if they'll do it.

_To be continued..._


	27. Chapter 27

To kill Kira.

It sounds strange, because it's what half the population of the Western world wanted for a long time, and what seemed for so long practically out of reach.

It's what took the deaths of hundreds and radical changes to security and investigative forces in several nations, and what L risked his life for.

Not to mention, it was supposed to already have happened long ago.

Really, it wouldn't be entirely selfish; many would argue that Kira should be dead. Few people have been more dangerous.

Few devices have been more horrific than the supposed _Death Note_.

But there is something else that Mello is very curious about, and that is speaking with Light—with the boy whose ability to reason is so great that he is kept alive despite the astounding magnitude of his crime.

The only suitable rival to L, and the only suitable counterpart to L.

Taking on this mission would be a very big deal with the guarantee of a heavy toll—but the temptation to meet Light is nearly too great, and ultimately Mello finds himself unable to give an answer.

"How much time do we have to decide?" Matt asks, green eyes gazing coolly across the room.

Silence.

"I'll give you until Monday," she says at last, and Mello makes a mental note to try not to screw Matt in the middle of the day then.

Over the next several days, Mello can't stop thinking about it. He watches L reading over his work, teacup in one hand and paper in the other, big eyes darting to and fro behind black hair, and Mello wonders if it really is true that_ L still speaks with him _– not, of course, in the full sense of the word, but, somehow, _they still communicate_.

Does it hurt, Mello wonders, does it hurt that their entire bond is reduced to this, and what kind of bond did they really have to begin with—L wanted him dead, didn't he, L risked his very life for the purpose of sentencing Kira to death.

Is L satisfied with the way things are now? Would he rather that Kira was dead? Could that really hurt more than this—than working coolly and mechanically with the person you love, knowing he is tied and bound and infinitely restrained and—

"Mello is worried about something," comes L's quiet voice from behind the document in his hands.

Blue eyes dart in his direction and Mello studies L's face for several moments before answering. "It's nothing," he replies, because even though he knows that lying to L is useless, and L probably knows that he's thinking about Kira, asking L about Kira is also useless.

So, L does not elaborate, and, after he finishes reading the document, he places it on the table with a small grin. He begins unfolding his long legs from the chair and, stepping onto the floor, he gazes at Mello knowingly and, waving the document before him, he says,

"Would you mind if I kept this, I'd like to look it over again."

"Y—yeah, okay," Mello replies, finally remembering to stand up, as well, and he wonders when L communicated with Light last and what it was about.

Maybe it was even something that Mello helped L with.

Maybe, really, he should get to communicate with Light, too.

XXX

Mello and Matt agree.

Come Monday, they are again seated across from Misora in their living room, not having lifted a finger to tidy up in preparation for her arrival but this time, at least, presentable and mostly dressed.

She explains to them the details of how this is to be carried out, elaborating on the technology used in the secure cell.

The key, in essence, is the very device through which L and Light communicate. While it's fingerprint-enabled, because Kira is very heavily restrained, he does not initiate communication between them, and it comes only from L's side, which is encrypted and secure. Further, while Kira's fingerprint is required for pickup on that end, there must be someone else in the room to press his finger to the device for him, and to monitor communication therein.

Other than this assigned monitor, however, the room is locked and shut at this time to any other signals going out or in.

While communication is never initiated from within the cell, it is nevertheless technically possible to do this, and the transceiver plate cannot actually distinguish between a fingerprint coming or going. Therefore, if both prints were read simultaneously, there would exist a very brief interval for pickup before the signal actually arrived at L's end.

It is during that interval that they are to pick up from within the cell—using a copy of L's fingerprint.

The room would then lock and shut to any signals going in and out until communication was disabled.

It is then when they are to carry out the job.

At all times Kira is drugged with a mild concentration of sedatives, administered by intravenous cubital injection. To this they are to add a low dose of phenol, directly to the catheter tube, and no residue, no waste, no prints.

"Don't spend more than about an hour in there," she says, "or you'll begin to stir suspicion."

Her eyes dart to Matt's gloved hands. "Wear them at all times. Both of you. No prints."

And then, before Mello can respond, "You can watch; you can even talk with him. But don't touch."

She can tell that this part finds them both irritated.

"This is serious," she continues, "you have to leave without anyone knowing you were in there."

And finally, as if reading their minds, "and don't even think about trying to let him out somehow. He's very smart. He'll figure out who you are and _he will kill you_."

Mello and Matt stare at her in silence, both holding their breath; it sounds, Matt thinks, like she speaks from experience.

_To be continued…_


	28. Chapter 28

There follows a period of learning during which time Mello and Matt are instructed as to the specifics of how they are to carry out the murder of Kira.

Misora is not the only one who wants this; there is a structured group, an organization almost, among those special agents who know that he is kept alive and who feel he should be dead.

Mello and Matt's close relations with L without any ties to actual investigative forces put them in a unique position to take on the job: there is about as little scrutiny or curiosity about who they are as there is about their real names.

It's supposed to look like suicide, a turn at the IV dial to a lethal dose, and back-wiring of the transducer should lose trace that a connection was initiated.

They are given time to familiarize themselves with the means of operation of the plate-operated transducer, with how to turn it on and how to recognize the brief interval that the connection can be dually cut, and it isn't as easy as it sounded, and neither is memorizing the floor plan and check points of the facility or learning to use fake prints or practice giving intravenous injection.

"L will know for sure," Mello whispers to Matt; and it's what he thinks about, and it's what he wonders about, and what he feels so much regret about when he gazes at L across the table; and when L pats him on the head, and when L asks him for the analysis he wrote— which, in a hopeless display of anxiety, falls right out of Mello's hand and scatters on the floor. He thinks the tension in him must be ridiculously obvious, because, when he kneels to collect the scattered sheets, he finds to his horror that among them is also an unpaid phone bill and a sheet or two of scrap paper.

There comes L's white hand on Mello's when he begins to assemble them, and, biting down his own aggravation, Mello gazes back, frustrated and sorry— and it's heartbreaking that _even then_ L smiles kindly at him, long fingers taking the sheets from his hands and assembling them back together without a word.

But he _has_ to know, and, for Mello, this is torment— because he knows that even now he won't change his mind about the job. Even as he suffers beneath L's warm gaze, his curiosity comes far too great to give this up.

How much would this hurt L, and could it really hurt more than it does already, and would it hurt more than the fact that

_I don't think Light ever loved anyone_—

Was this really true, did Light really never love L, and what did he think of, locked and tied and restrained and drugged, what did he think of in that great mind of his, and was it really never about L, was it really never about—

_No, he gave it up, he forgot everything_,

It comes almost like a real voice echoing through the dreaming recesses of his mind late after he thinks he has fallen asleep, and Mello is aware this episode has taken its toll.

Also quite fascinating is the issue of the Death Note. The device came equipped with an intricate series of rules meticulously constructed for the sole purpose of teaching people to use it. It was L who ultimately obtained it from Kira, and then there followed an almost world-wide controversy about what should be done with it.

Something almost as monstrous as a nuclear weapon, the Death Note stirred an ethical debate between scientists and national leaders as to whether it should be destroyed or kept for research as to better understand it. Still others claimed that L should decide what should be done because he, after all, successfully extracted it from Kira.

The decision was ultimately to keep the thing over a limited period of time for the purpose of investigation as monitored by high inspection and security, after which point it was destroyed. This is what Mello had come to understand, and it's what he kept in mind when, researching the topic years ago, he all but memorized the various rules with which it was associated.

XXX

Mello and Matt were never really ones to learn cooking, and even more so following the later-addressed "kitchen incident," so, in rather a commendable culinary effort, Mello had set up an intricate network of sockets and wires connecting the television power bar to a toaster and parts of a hot plate in the living room.

It worked wonders, that is, when it didn't short the electricity in the left half of the apartment, or when it resulted in a higher current than the hot plate really could handle, so it was a good thing Matt was usually around, and it was a good thing he was around that Tuesday evening when—

"_Maaaaaaaaatt!_"

Following the recently-familiar flash of Matt's computer monitor to dark, there comes the blackout of the lights, and finally Mello's cry of despair—in that reassuring, regular order.

Half-dressed and irritated, Matt walks into the living room, wondering if really they should get to cleaning the kitchen once and for all. Without so much as a word, he passes Mello's casually naked figure and unlocks the front door to their apartment, stepping out into the hall to begin work on the electrical board for what may be the third time that week. Mello waits, eyes large and dilated as he gazes at the strip of light coming in from outside the door; he doesn't get mad this time. A lot can be said of his friend, but one thing he has always known and silently respected in Matt is his fascinating talent with machinery. The guy really was good with his hands. Mello remembers with astonishment having watched Matt kneel over hardware for hours, cigarette hanging between his lips and quietly engaged behind his goggles as he tinkered and fiddled with the wires and parts inside, until, some long time later, he had flawlessly deciphered a code or disabled an explosive or hacked a password.

And he almost seemed to enjoy it, and he almost seemed to enjoy working on the electrical board now, so when, smiling at Mello, he bites down on the cigarette between his teeth and all but glows with contentment as he walks back in through the front door, Mello suddenly wants to fuck him real bad, and he's just about to do it, too, when again the stupid phone begins to ring.

"God damn it, Misora!" Mello yells into after picking up, "Why have you always got to call when I'm about to screw Matt!"

And Matt smirks, but soon his face grows serious when he hears her voice from the receiver in Mello's hand—

_It's time. _

_To be continued… _


	29. Chapter 29

_I'm sorry, L._

The words were imprinted in Mello's mind for days, weeks even, to where they'd become knowing familiar, steady and curiously calming; that night, though, when they got on the plane to Japan, there began to form a strange paralysis that left even this shrouded in flickering anxiety.

They were ready, they knew the mission by heart. They knew what to do in case of failure and in case of emergency, what prints to use where and what prints to avoid and how to see in the dark and how information travels in fibers of light, and why this is the right thing to do and how even if it wasn't, now there is no way out anyhow.

When Mello closes his eyes, he remembers when first L had left for Japan, many years before, when he was younger and didn't want L to go, and definitely didn't want him to battle against Kira.

_I'm sorry, L._

But maybe this is what L had wanted, too.

It's cold and dry on the plane, and they've never been to Japan before; they've been so heavily wound and meticulously prepared they haven't really given much thought to the fact that they're on their way to a new country.

_Sueprmax_, that's the slang term for maximum security facilities, and that's the kind of place they were going to infiltrate. It didn't sound very nice at all.

Prisoners have presumably gone mad from the things that go on there, he heard, but he also heard Kira was already mad to begin with. Mello finds he wishes almost this was something loud and hard and violent, _and not so hauntingly eerie_.

They arrive in Japan two stops and almost a day later, red-eyed and tired and disoriented and jet-lagged, but quietly alive with stress; and when finally they are on the cab ride to their hotel, Mello leans lethargically into Matt's shoulder.

There comes the gentle brush of long fingers through Mello's hair, Matt says to him, "We're here, Mello, we're in Japan."

Matt leans to kiss his forehead, whispering things Mello can't hear, and it's all he can do to console his friend for now.

They're very quiet when they reach their hotel room, Mello slides in the key and pushes the heavy door open, he's got sunglasses on even though it's night.

Matt leaves the suitcases by the door, he turns to Mello and runs his fingers along the plastic handles of his sunglasses, sliding them out from under his hair and placing them on the dresser nearby.

Mello's eyelids bat a few times, eyes red and inflamed; Matt playfully kisses each of his eyes in what's really a show of compassion. He knows that _when Mello isn't like Mello_, it's usually because of L.

His fingers come gentle and warm on his friend's skin when he pulls down the zipper at his vest, Mello watches with distant composure when Matt kisses the skin beneath— but no matter how warm or how gentle or how kind Matt is with him, Mello remains tight and rigid, cerebral and frozen solid with purpose.

"Okay," Matt gives up, and he doesn't try anything on Mello, but he attempts to explain they're going to have to get some sleep.

"I'm sorry, Matt,"

it comes quiet and serious when, some time after the fact, they lie wide-eyed in the dark.

"Remember when you used to sleep over in my room? Back at Wammy's?" Matt asks.

"Yeah, when we did homework."

"Not that. I mean, after the homework."

"You always fell asleep before I finished my homework."

Matt thinks about this.

"Always? You sure?"

"Yeah, because you studied on your bed."

"I studied?"

Mello smirks. "You know you did, dumbass."

And then he grows quiet, because he realizes that Matt has managed to make him smile for the first time that day.

His hands come slowly around Matt's naked back; the memory of doing homework at Matt's desk all those years ago is comforting. He doesn't remember when exactly or how, or whether it's in his head or aloud when, inaudibly, he murmurs,

_I love you, Matt_,

but he does finally fall asleep.

XXX

It's twilight when they set out the next day.

They've trained a long time for this, coming in undercover with every print and ID and code, and with the sterile needle strapped to the inside of the metal buckle in Mello's belt.

It rings at the security check as expected, and he takes it off and watches the guard pass it through and hand it back to him on the other side of the gate.

They get through the entrance hall unscathed, and on to the second wing, not because that's the right way, but because this way is more common, and then down beneath the solitary confinement unit and through to the fifth wing.

They've memorized the entire layout, but, needless to say, it's entirely different in real life.

It's entirely different when at each hall you have to reproduce the code sequence associated with that door or that ward or that turn.

It's entirely different with the hitch in breath that comes with adrenaline so intense that Mello wonders if, by the time they actually arrive, he won't feel drugged, himself.

Most of the cells they pass are lined with bars and hard glass, and while some of the prisoners are calm, some stare at them and whisper or say things, and some sleep, and some don't bother or don't care— and because, really, Mello and Matt have no idea what they're in for in the first place, they can't help wondering how different from them these people really are.

They walk past the units with bars and the units with glass and the units with windows in doors, until they reach a hall with units that have no windows and no spaces at all, and the doors are white, heavy metal and you can't see anything in or out; and the flickering, fluorescent light of the ceiling lamp gives way to a greenish dim, they stop almost in place by the very sound of their own footsteps when they come at last before the cell, itself.

Cell G.

This is the first of two doors.

You get in with a dual sliding key.

They don't look at each other; they can almost feel each other's heartbeat through the mutual slide of the plastic cards.

There comes the ringing echo of the snapping lock within, then the heavy slide of metal as, like all the other doors there, these ones come apart.

And then again the disconcerting sound of their own footsteps on the white linoleum floor;

And the second of two doors.

This one works by fingerprint.

They had the prints mounted to the very underside of their fingers, because there are cameras all around.

Mello thinks he's never felt a pulse beat so undeniably alive through the vessels coursing in him; from the corner of his eye, he peers at Matt peering back, and, hand trembling, he reaches for the print pad.

_I'm sorry, L. _

Biting down on his lip, he presses firm, tense, hard, deaf to all the world when there comes again the heavy sliding of doors, slow and cold and metal—

And then all is silent.

_They're in._

_To be continued…_


	30. Chapter 30

Inside, the room is completely dark.

Dark and oddly silent, both particularly pronounced after the heavy slide of the doors back into position.

And then, after several moments, there comes into being the dim outline of something square and silver, and, taken with a low tremor, Mello's fingers close around the slick cylinder of the infrared flashlight in the pocket of his coat.

Not yet; the cameras are still running.

Off on the far wall, there gradually appears a dimly glowing screen, and, in a moment of revelation, Matt realizes that this is the transceiver pad.

Which means that very close by is—

_Don't say anything. The cameras are still running._

Eyes big in the darkness, Mello paces blindly forth, the outline of the cell sharp in his mind but nevertheless somehow entirely useless now that they're really there, and he stops when, a foot or two before him, he can make out the soft outline of a horizontal rail at about waist level.

It's funny how afraid he feels without his gun.

_Don't faint. Don't freak out. Don't scream._ They told him ahead of time that, as standard procedure, when he approaches the bed—

But both he and Matt reach instinctively for the guns that aren't there when, almost mechanically, the silence is broken by the slide of cloth and heavy clinking of metal, and then, in the darkness, there comes into being the very real form of a slender human arm, reaching forth with complete obedience and quietly awaiting manipulation.

The pad.

Next to the lethal injection, this is probably the most nerve-wrecking part.

They exchange glances in the darkness; Mello is to take Kira's hand; Matt is to touch the pad.

Not daring to look away, Mello brings his hand gradually closer to the one before him, which, he notes, is bound by the circular lock of a single metal cuff, and when at last he touches it, he finds that it's strangely warm and soft and—

Almost unexpectedly human.

He swallows hard, trying not to think about the fact that _right now, he is touching Kira_.

Even more unexpected is the fact that Kira is entirely compliant, readily giving up autonomy as Mello unlocks the cuff and brings his finger to the pad.

Of course, Mello remembers, this is standard procedure for him. Against the dim glow of the transceiver pad, Mello can see Matt's finger with the print mounted beneath the gloved surface, and, together, they both press down.

Then, within several fractions of a second, Matt presses down again—this is L's print.

The first sound that comes then is the single flicker of the cameras as they shut down; the second is that of the audio device, and, last, a sequence of heavy slides as, one by one, the entryway doors lock down.

And then, again, silence.

Silence, Mello thinks, but for the rhythm of their breath and the tremor of his pulse beneath his skin.

"How is he?"

Entirely taken off guard, both Mello and Matt flip their heads in the direction of the sound.

It comes very fluid and soft, spoken with polite reserve and in flawless English. Mello draws his hand away all at once, and then, with a quiet rustling of the chain, he can hear Kira's arm moving quietly away.

Neither of them need to ask _who_.

But after several moments, Mello asks very quietly, "how did you know?"

"I should ask the same thing,"

comes the reply, and Mello finds himself astonished by how beautiful and gentle he sounds, and not at all like anything he expected.

Very slowly, Mello climbs onto the bed, just barely able to make out the boy's outline, and he slides his knees on both sides of the slender waist, slowly kneeling closer.

"We're not supposed to touch," Matt thinks of saying, but, somehow, the words are oddly lodged in his throat.

Kira neither moves nor speaks when Mello's gloved fingers come curiously against the side of his face, and he waits patiently as they slide along the curve of the mandible and then up to the maxilla and the shell of his ear, where they hook around the cloth of the blindfold, and then medially to his forehead beneath feathery locks of hair and down along the cloth at the slope of his nose to his lips and finally his chin, until Mello has satisfied himself that Kira really is human.

Matt watches on curiously, waiting also with a great deal of patience, until at last he takes out the infrared light.

"Okay, go on,"

Is what Mello means to say when Matt is about to flip it on, but only the first one or two syllables actually come out.

Now, L really hasn't told them a whole lot about Kira, but he did mention a few things here and there, and among those things he mentioned that Kira was beautiful.

_Beautiful_, however, is really rather a vague term that can range in meaning and implication, and while Mello and Matt understood to some legitimate extent (and, really, this served largely to pique their curiosity), they really weren't prepared that, even with the blindfold still in place, by _beautiful_, they could tell that L really meant something more like _perfect_.

He is a mere three years older than Mello, gazing ahead blindly from behind the cloth beneath silken strands of brown hair. He's built slender and elegant with long, bony articulations and soft, pale skin showing through the wine ripples of the velvet sheet sliding loosely from his naked form and down onto the floor.

And, sure enough, he's completely restrained—with an intricate series of latches and binds that remind Mello almost vividly of the way L tied him up.

"It must hurt," Mello says softly, still now feeling the dull remains of the bruises and cuts once sharp in his ribs and his back.

His fingers reach out slowly around the boy's head, where they begin to unravel the cloth binds of the blindfold, until at last the thing slides down from his face and to his bare chest beneath, and immediately Light turns his head away from the dim glow of the infrared lamp, eyes unused to anything but darkness for so long.

Curiously, Mello touches his finger to the boy's chin, and he tilts his head very slowly, gazing in fascination at the long eyelashes and finally the timid glow of brown eyes which, despite it all, gaze back with what can only be described as_ innocence_.

And then Mello's gaze continues down to the boy's other arm, where, sure enough, there is attached an intravenous drip, streaming slowly from a large plastic bag hanging upside-down and controlled by a switch.

Really, the drip is very slow and the dose is almost suspiciously mild.

When Mello turns his head back, he notices that Light has been examining him, too, and he wonders suddenly how long it has been for Light since last he laid his eyes on another human face.

"Your accent is like his," the boy says, "but you look very different."

His voice is as velvety as the cover sliding down from his pale, naked form, and suddenly Mello wonders why it is that Misora warned them against letting him out—after all, if all Kira needed to kill was a face and a name, why couldn't he do it right there in the cell?

Wasn't the Death Note destroyed, anyway?

For several moments, the two cannot take their eyes off one another.

Is this really the mass murderer, Kira?

Is this really the boy whose capacity to reason is so great that they keep him alive just to hear his thoughts?

….and is he really the boy who never loved anyone?

_To be continued…_


	31. Chapter 31

Mello has been so consumed in his thoughts that he hasn't noticed how intensely Light has been staring at him.

"You're his heir then," Light says suddenly in what seems like a moment of revelation, and then after a pause, "he must really trust you."

Both Mello and Matt stare back in astonishment.

It is with the most unsettling bout of fear that they begin to understand that there really is more to him than seductive beauty: he really is very sharp.

Neither of them understands how he could have known that. And, gradually, Matt begins also to wonder how it is that Light knew to address them in English before either of them spoke a single word to him.

Before they even removed his blindfold.

More unsettling is the fact that, Mello realizes, Light must either wonder why they're there or he already figured out that they've come to kill him—but neither asks nor speaks of this at all.

Even as Mello begins to run his fingers down the soft curve of Light's shoulder, he grows more wary and suspicious of him by the minute.

Long eyelashes come down over soft brown eyes as Light exhales very quietly, and, just looking at him, suspicion and all, Matt realizes it must have been a very long time since anyone has touched him that way.

Watching Mello begin to seduce Light is somehow oddly familiar to Matt and somehow nearly identically to the way that L seduced Mello when he was bound.

"He told us about you," Mello says, breath coming moist against Light's temple, and Light doesn't seem at all surprised.

"Did he tell you about the Death Note?" Light asks without shame, because that sort of information has been made widely public years ago.

"I learned on my own," Mello replies, his long fingers clawing at the dark velvet cover sliding loosely down from Light's abdomen, "I read a lot about it."

"Is that so," comes the reply, and Matt gazes on, strangely transfixed and curious that Light does not at all resist.

"And death Gods, did you read a lot about that, as well?"

Characteristically serious and intense, Mello's eyes flip up toward Light's.

"Yeah," he replies, and while he's never spoken with L about this directly, he remembers that the topic made him very uneasy.

But Light smiles. And, God, he is beautiful when he smiles, Mello realizes, and, the more he looks at him, the better he can understand why L loved him so much.

Light doesn't say much; even as he's subdued and subjugated, restrained and secured and anesthetized, naked and vulnerable and shackled, even then he maintains an elegant, gentle dignity and piercing intelligence that entirely humbles Mello and Matt.

Even now they can understand that, Kira or not, Light is no ordinary person.

Mello motions for Matt to come closer, and the younger boy hesitates, still very uneasy about the whole thing. Both he and Mello are terrified about being there in the first place, and now, instead of carrying out the job, they're touching Kira, which they were told explicitly not to do.

Feeling Matt's unease all too well, Mello laughs quietly, "I thought we live on the edge, Matty," he murmurs, gazing up through his hair even as he leans in to run his tongue against Light's neck, "I know you've wanted to do this since L showed you how."

"I—" Matt chokes on his words, but Mello continues,

"In the bath, with L, when you and he—"

He smiles, still looking up at Matt as he kisses Light's chest, because Mello notices things too, and he noticed the slightest expression on surprise flash through Light's features when he spoke of their time in the bath.

"Don't freak out," he says to Matt, "it's not like I told him your real name."

"That's not funny!" Matt actually appears irritated.

"Don't let that worry you," comes suddenly Light's soft voice, "I don't have the Death Note anymore."

That's right. It was destroyed. Wasn't it?

"Then—" Mello realizes suddenly, "then how do you remember—?"

And then, with the most heartbreaking of smiles, Light gazes back, and he says nothing, and it is then that Mello and Matt understand.

_He doesn't._

_He really doesn't remember_, and yet he's here, tied up and shackled and just barely at all alive.

Which means—

Which means that despite the fact that he doesn't remember, going only on what he knows and what he has learned, he completely believes that he really was Kira, or even that _he reasoned this on his own_.

Oh, God.

It must be awful.

And this is what it takes for Matt to overcome his anxiety about it all, and what makes him at last realize that perhaps, in this case, things aren't really all very well cut, and maybe this isn't fair, and maybe the FBI isn't being fair, and maybe Light isn't really Kira at all and therefore maybe he really shouldn't be—

But there it is again, that irking pain in the back of his thoughts that _L knows_.

Of course, L knows.

And really, it is L who is responsible for the way Light is held under arrest.

Something isn't right.

He remembers suddenly that L described Light as _v__ery sharp. Political. Manipulative. Seductive._

Both he and Mello feel it; there's something else at play—something very strange—

And very frightening.

It's almost hard to think so, however, when they gaze at the boy before them, beautiful and calm even as he accepts the severity of his sentence with uninterrupted grace.

It's almost aggravating to them, because everything about him all but radiates one undeniable word:

_Innocence_.

_To be continued…_


	32. Chapter 32

Somehow, Light knows.

He knows, it seems, that Matt and Mello aren't supposed to be there. He knows that they didn't speak with L about this. He's not even the least bit surprised that, mere moments following their very encounter, Mello didn't hesitate to begin seducing him.

He never held back. He merely watches with quiet intensity, almost as if studying them, silently thinking, calculating even, Mello thinks.

Even as he disrobes Light of the single trace of modesty allowed to him—the sheet—and even as he all but consumes him with liquid blue eyes colored purely with want—even then he is entirely wary, suspicious and careful with all the focused intensity of a desert vulture, all the while fully aware that, of course, Light can see this, too.

And of course, here, too, he says nothing.

Certainly, then, Mello takes every liberty to proceed, the narrow corners of his mouth rising in contentment and appreciation as, voice low, he murmurs,

"Come on, Matt. Let's touch Kira."

And Matt is only quiet for about three seconds.

After that, he comes closer, climbing onto the mattress alongside his partner in crime, brushing aside any astonishment at Light's unwavering acceptance.

Oh, surely this is the calm before the storm, he thinks, but before the storm comes, yes, he thinks he rather would very much like to touch Kira.

"Do you think," Mello asks even as he leans in again to kiss Light's neck, "that if we told him what we did with L—"

he stops mid-sentence, fingertips running tentatively along the bare chest,

"—that he would be so kind as to tell us…"

"…to tell us what L did with him?"

Matt asks, voice low and hoarse as he watches Mello, and then, as of their own accord, his fingers reach for Mello's coat and begin pulling it off.

Light blinks, long eyelashes batting quietly, in slow motion. Mello remembers that of all the things he's mentioned, perhaps the bit about their intimacy with L was the sole mention that seemed at all to stir him.

"Do you want to know?"

Mello whispers, and now he tilts his head up, face inching closer as his eyes dart from Light's mouth to his eyes and back,

"Light Yagami."

There runs a chill through Light's spine as he hears his name spoken like that, oddly short-syllabled like a regular word in English; L's accent in Japanese was impeccable and, despite being English, even he had pronounced his name _Lighto_.

_Lighto-kun_.

Very softly, he grins, and his smile doesn't fade even as Mello seizes his mouth, almost as if he consoles himself with the knowledge that _these are the lips that kissed L_.

No. Nonsense. Light never loved anyone.

He's merely seductive.

But really, he does it so well that Mello can almost forgive him—he's so gentle and sensual and soft, like silk, like water, _like liquid poison_.

"You were a good boy, weren't you,"

Mello whispers against his mouth, because Mello was a bad boy, but even though Light was raised sheltered in the ideal nurturing setting where he could comfortably flourish as the perfect son he was, growing up orphaned and alone didn't keep Mello from over-achieving at least as much as he.

In the end, overtly or covertly, they both knew the meaning of death.

But only Mello knew the metal feel of a gun resting heavy against the moist palm of his hand.

"Were you a virgin when he took you,"

he continues, and now, hair standing on end, Matt claws gently at Mello's shirt, proceeding to slide it off his body and toss it to the floor.

Light hesitates before he replies, and both Mello and Matt practically shiver with satisfaction when he tells them that, yes, he was.

_So they really did it then_,

Matt thinks, and also he remembers that when Mello asked L if he restrained Light the way he did to him, L replied that no, what he did to Light was far worse.

It must have been very nice, isn't that right, L must have gotten quite a kick out of that.

They almost feel remorse for Light, but Light never loved anyone.

But despite it all, it's impossible not to want him, and, bare chest against bare chest, Mello leans closer, bony arms encircling around Light's neck as he begins kissing him again, and it's with some difficulty now that Matt reaches forth to unravel the buckle at Mello's belt.

"Stop doing that," Mello gasps, stopping long enough to break for air, "you're the one L showed what he likes, you should be doing this."

Matt smiles shyly, reluctant even now to take the lead, and it is then that Mello realizes that Light really does look a bit like him, and he thinks he really would very much like to watch them kiss.

Also, he very much would like to get some kind of reaction out of Light, who's been almost exasperatingly quiet all throughout.

Matt, of course, has been at least as curious about Kira as Mello. And, despite his reluctance and despite being shy, Matt is good with his hands, deceptively careful and attentive.

"You're wondering, aren't you," Mello says, now turning to Light, "you're wondering what we did with L."

He withdraws, sighing almost with regret as his lip clings softly to Light's, and he knows the boy is reaching after him, and it flatters him to no end.

Gaze still unbroken, he reaches with one hand for Matt's arm, and he pulls him closer.

"Kiss him," he whispers to Matt, "I wanna watch."

_What if he doesn't want to, though?_

Matt thinks,

_What if he doesn't want to kiss either one of us?_

And then, in a hauntingly familiar gesture of compassion, Light actually smiles at Matt, and, polite as ever, he says,

"It's okay. Go ahead."

And Mello and Matt stop in place.

He really is very similar to L.

And there definitely is something very strange going on.

_To be continued…_


	33. Chapter 33

Matt is undeniably cute, Mello thinks.

He probably wants a smoke real bad about now, doesn't he, because, quiet and deep in thought, he settles himself across from Light and the slender digits of his hands reach absently for the pockets their outfits don't have, almost helpless as they pad the air around him and finally clench softly into fists.

He presses his lips together, hair falling over his eyes as he looks down to his lap where his hands search to play with something—with anything—and he's a child, only nineteen years old and soft-skinned behind the long cuff of his coat.

_So you really killed all those people?_

_So you slept with L? I slept with L, too._

_I'm Matt and I'm from the UK and this is my best mate, Mello, but those aren't our real names._

Green eyes gaze out through long strands of hair.

"You have a family, isn't that right,"

Matt says quietly, because he never did, but he heard about how, strangely enough, Kira's father was chief of the police force tasked with finding Kira in Japan.

Light stares back, quiet for a long time before, voice soft as always, he replies,

"That's right," and then, quieter still, "that is why I'm here."

That is why he's here? Does that mean—did his own father turn in him? No, that isn't how it went. L got him.

_What do you mean_, Matt thinks of asking, but despite his composure, Light is visibly brittle with emotion, and Matt thinks it must be hard for someone who's always had a family to be suddenly isolated.

_I never knew my parents._

_I'm sorry if what I said upset you._

_I think your voice is very pretty._

"Are you cold?" Matt says suddenly, "you must be so cold…"

And his fingers begin to collect the sheet around him, but suddenly he feels Light's hand on his.

"It's okay. I'm not cold."

It comes polite and definite and colored entirely with odd reserve, and maybe if he wasn't Kira, maybe if they weren't in the midst of a job, maybe if they weren't in the midst of infiltrating a maximum security prison in a foreign nation, maybe then Matt would try to somehow help or console him, maybe he'd even take him in his arms or even kiss him like Mello wanted, but instead he is knotted entirely with suspicion and tension and intensity and fear, but suddenly he remembers—

—that L really loved this boy.

He swallows quietly. Light is also a child.

"Close your eyes," Matt says, and, confused, Light flips his gaze warily toward Matt, but Matt asks him again, and,

"Don't worry. I won't—just—okay."

And Light actually does, and, after watching him for several moments, Matt moves a bit closer, and, reaching toward Light with trembling hands, he doesn't need to say anything more, because he understands that Light must be thinking of L.

And when he kisses Light, pressing desperate and warm against him, Matt wonders to himself how that must feel for Light, who—

_never loved anyone_.

But now also he feels oddly fascinated and touched and surprised, because he didn't expect when he kissed him that Light would respond so gently and cleverly in kind and with such undeniable talent; he didn't expect the desperate, warm intensity in his touch or the way that it was somehow erotic enough to drive Matt nearly to aching arousal.

_Seductive_ is right.

And he does it so well that Matt thinks he doesn't at all mind being seduced.

Mello also doesn't mind that Matt is being seduced, and even as he fights to keep from succumbing to his own desire, he brings his hand slowly to Matt's shoulder,

"Hey," he says quietly, voice hoarse, "let's take it easy, yeah?"

And, lips moving against Matt's long hair at the side of his ear, he looks again at Light,

"He hasn't had it in a _very long time_."

He bites Matt's ear gently before withdrawing again.

Speechless with arousal and wonderment, Matt moves aside and allows Mello again to take the lead, watching the narrow bend of his knees as his long legs fold on either side of Light's waist and Mello climbs into his lap.

Light can feel both their gazes on him, tracing the flawless surface of his skin with the same predatory appreciation he's seen countless times in the eyes of others.

Mello runs his fingers down along Light's chest, over the latches and the binds strapped all around his thorax and his abdomen and also the arm that is bound and the arm that is cuffed, until at last they come to rest just at the inguinal ridge and, biting his lip, Mello croons,

"_Aww—_"

It comes dry and hoarse and laden half with genuine pity,

"_—you couldn't even touch yourself_,"

He murmurs, now moving his gaze very slowly from Light's face to his naked sex, and he bites down on his index finger in pretense of heartfelt compassion.

He has Light's attention now, the boy staring at him now, silent as before but actually blushing now, at last anxious and visibly affected and not at all happy, and it dawns on Mello that part of what it means for Light to be a good boy is that he doesn't talk about what he does or doesn't touch with people he's just met.

Or maybe he doesn't talk about it at all.

Maybe that's what it's like when you have a good family upbringing.

But none of that, of course, is going to stop Mello from talking that way, and, really, he feels the incentive a hundredfold now that he knows it makes Light blush.

Index finger still bent thoughtfully against his teeth, Mello stares down exactly where Light doesn't want him to stare, and then, bringing the digit lower to touch the member beneath, he says to Matt,

"Do you think maybe—"

One blue eye peers at Light from behind long hair—

"—maybe if we unlocked the cuffs on his hands—"

The feather-light brush of his finger renders Light curiously desperate, miserable as he fights uselessly to keep from giving in to arousal.

Mello's words are interrupted when suddenly Matt finds his voice, long-forgotten as he, too, fell deeper into seduction.

But instead of the elaborate warning he was going to give Mello about how supposedly if they even thought of letting him loose, he would kill them, Matt says merely that maybe they shouldn't, and by the time that, with a mockery of innocence, Mello inquires as to why, Matt has long given up and whispers that he doesn't know.

But Mello doesn't unlock the cuff.

He continues only to stare down at Light's narrow hips and the place where the warm flesh below is growing slowly rigid, and, with genuine anticipation, he runs his tongue slowly against the red curve of his lower lip and, because he knows how much this makes Light embarrassed, he doesn't look away.

"Cmere," he says to Matt, and when again he touches his finger to the naked member, it is now unquestionably hard, and because Light can no longer fight it, he does not look away.

Mello is entirely enjoying himself, and, smiling practically with wicked contentment, he turns to the younger boy, raising his wet fingers to Matt's lips as he touches his mouth slowly.

For a moment, Matt remains still, allowing Mello to slide his fingers past his teeth and into his mouth and against his tongue, but, really, Light tastes so nice, and ultimately Matt takes Mello's hand in both of his and, eyes closed, he licks softly at the wet digits.

Mello watches, lips parted but forgetting to breathe, and when at last he pulls away, Matt reaches after his hand with desperation that makes Mello's skin electric with shivers.

And then, again, his gaze turns to Light, and Mello is now completely aroused as he kneels over him.

"Do you want it too?"

He whispers, and he knows that a good boy like Light isn't going to say that he does, but he knows also that it's been a very long time for Light since last he tasted anything that tasted anything at all like sex.

Light is bound, so he can't reach for Mello's hand like Matt did, and he can't grab him or hold him or pull him closer, but Mello remembers what it's like to be bound, so he doesn't make Light suffer any longer. After he presses his finger to the boy's lips and allows him to suck on them, he kisses Light again, and Light responds with intense desperation that strikes a very strange chord with Mello, because it seems almost to delve beyond the physical and into very intricate cerebral obsession that Mello thinks he's only ever witnessed in one other person before.

_To be continued…_


	34. Chapter 34

"L wasn't gentle with you, was he,"

Mello says, because the scratches still alive in the skin of his back are a delicious reminder that L wasn't gentle with him, either.

But the more Mello has at Light, the more he understands that, unlike himself, Light probably wanted it gentle.

He can't deny, however, that he can see just how lovely it must have been for L to devour Light with the full extent of his sadistic desire, because, really, Mello knows that he, himself, is every bit as beautiful as Light, and maybe that's why he gets so hot thinking of himself tied up, too.

He would have a go at himself if he could, really.

Mello would stare at himself in the mirror for hours, naked, and press his face to the glass and stare deep into the piercing blue eyes that stared back with all the wicked intensity that was his fiery core, and, fingers leaving in their wake an opaque residue, he would whisper silent things to himself that Matt couldn't hear from the other side of the room, but it was amusing no less, because the way Mello wanted himself was both creepy and somehow very erotic.

Mello can't help remembering, then, that somehow he reminded L of Light, and the thought crosses his mind that it would be very malevolent and lovely to be tied along with Light, together, especially because he knows how much Light would hate it.

It's a shame they have to kill him, really.

Mello thinks he would love nothing more than to return him to his rightful owner.

But it was L, wasn't it, who put him here in the first place.

It seems cruel, but Mello knows better than to doubt L's judgment, and, also, Mello knows better than to judge L's taste, and it is with humble fascination that he admits to himself that, as far as taste goes, this was of his finest sadistic ideas.

Beautiful. Vulnerable. Powerless. Perfect. Naked. Subjugated.

That's what L made of Kira.

Oh, _L knows._

This is practically a gift.

There stretches a malicious smile across Mello's lips as the long digits of his hands begin prying at the binds, and when, alarmed and reluctant, Matt asks him what in the hell he thinks he's doing, Mello's laugh comes dark and fluid when he replies,

"How else are we gonna fuck him, Matty?"

And it's pure pleasure, Mello thinks, to feel Light's body stiffen beneath him at the sound of his words, and he thinks almost that he's undoing the binds merely in hopes that Light would try to fight back.

Ooh, it would be nice, wouldn't it, to wrestle with him, naked flesh on naked flesh, Mello really would love to see who would win at that.

"I thought you'd ride him,"

Matt replies simply, but soon they both quiet down, because Mello has finished unfastening the last of the binds, and, even despite his disapproval, Matt finds himself oddly fascinated at least as much as Mello as he watches Light's wonderment at being freed.

There are pressure marks all along his skin at least as deep as those Mello had, red and fibrous at regular intervals across his chest and stomach and waist and also his shoulders and one of his arms, and, very slowly, Light raises himself by his elbows, brown eyes gazing softly at his hand as he rotates it around by the wrist.

He says nothing; he neither protests the lewd things Matt and Mello must be thinking nor cackles evilly at the wicked fate he is now free to unleash upon those who did him wrong; he neither breaks down in tears nor thanks the Gods for sparing him; and only silence, again, just long silence, and just blank, unreadable understanding as he turns the limbs around in the joints that have lain stiff in place for so very, very long.

And least of all expected is what follows then, when, composed as ever, he looks again at Mello and asks,

"I understand there's something you'd like in return."

There is pure intensity between them.

"Yes," Mello replies, not taking his eyes off Light, "that's right."

"In that case," Light says softly, closing his eyes with all the elegant composure of a trained politician, "I guess it can't be helped."

Fascinating.

Mere moments ago—wasn't he reluctant just then? Wasn't he virginal, wasn't he the least bit repulsed or afraid—

Wasn't he _the good son_?

Oh, Light is definitely a very interesting person.

If only Light were still dressed, and if only Mello had his gun so that he could point it at him and ask him with reserved hostility to take off his clothes.

But there's the next best thing, so, his gaze trained on Light, Mello replies,

"I want you to undress me. Slowly."

And Matt feels suddenly that his throat has gone dry with a wave of terror because, certainly, Mello asked this not merely for the sake of eroticism.

There is still in the buckle of his belt the sterile needle with the phenol injection inside.

And there falls on Matt a very unsettling sense of understanding when, without any sign of surprise or hesitation, Light undoes the latch and buckle on Mello's belt and, without so much as batting an eyelid, proceeds directly to the fly.

Light indeed is very sharp.

Matt feels his limbs go numb and his airway go brittle as he wonders at what point exactly Mello began to realize that Light understands their reason for coming.

_That he all but expected them._

And, far more frightening—

—_that it's almost like he knows something about it that they don't. _

_To be continued…_


	35. Chapter 35

They watch with silent tension as Light tests slowly the various joints and limbs now free to move, how he stretches and flexes his muscles and how the delicate articulations of his bones move with a low series of cracks;

But it's hard to stay reluctant and tense, because every sway and turn and move is graceful and strong, and the childlike look of amusement in his eyes is a priceless mockery of naiveté;

He turns around to gaze at the dimly lit walls behind the bed, inspecting probably for equipment and devices and cameras;

And he knows, doesn't he, how beautiful it is, the fluid curve of his back and the satin skin of his shoulders, and he knows what a brilliant touch they must think the chain marks on his back must be;

"Tell me, then," comes the soft voice, all politeness and velvety charm, "What is it exactly that he told you I like?"

He's completely naked, back turned to them and one leg sliding in an elegant display of patience over the side of the bed, long and slender as it brushes softly down, and Matt realizes then that he's rather tall—probably taller than either of them.

_Fuck me_,

He'd never say it, no, but that's the undeniable message in his eyes, too lewd for words but too real to ignore, and Mello can see in him the same narcissistic self-infatuation that he, himself, knows only all too well.

_Come,_

He doesn't say that, either, but, softly, his thin arms rise to his sides, and Mello and Matt both know that he's calling to them, and even as they stand hopelessly frozen in place, their eyes practically glaze over with desire.

This may quite simply be innocuous.

Or it might be a calculated trap.

Or—it might really be a gift.

_What is it that Mello wants?_

Mello is completely naked, too.

Very slowly, he comes closer to Light, arms sliding as of their own accord around the narrow abdomen, and his long hair cascades featherlike against Light's shoulder as he leans in to kiss the boy's neck.

Mello was only half conscious when they did this to him, but he remembers well enough how nice it felt.

Matt remembers, too. Mello was in the bath then, and he and L kissed Mello from either side of his neck.

Matt masturbated to the memory many times.

"L showed us—"

He begins, but he doesn't feel very good about revealing such things to Light—not because of intimacy, but because neither of them really trusts him.

Neither of them is really very sure as to how much Light really knows.

And, either way, Matt's words are interrupted when at last his lips make contact with the warm skin of Light's neck, and he shivers at the smooth feel of the hair at the nape of his neck that slides soft against him.

Light tastes so nice—at least as nice as Mello—and, for a moment, Matt thinks that it's such a shame to keep a stunning creature like him tied up alone like this.

_I want him, Mello_,

He thinks, and he can almost hear Mello think the same thing too, and before long they are both devouring him, kissing and licking the skin of his neck to the point of scratching and bruising, and, just barely able to maintain his composure, Light tilts his head back, brown locks hanging soft against his back.

_Does he remember L?_

_Does he remember L?_

_Don't, don't think about that,_ Matt tells himself bitterly, because, despite his amusement and ridicule of life in general, Matt is a creature driven largely by admiration and fondness, and it's almost like he's afraid of falling for Light, himself, because he understands that, with Light, there's obsession and wonderment and captivation and allure, but actual, real affection—

_Don't think about that._

They kiss him feverishly, practically fighting for his lips and competing enviously for his attention, and all throughout whispering and breathing and mouthing against his skin how gorgeous and stunning and beautiful he is, and how much they want him, and all the things they want to do to him, and Matt is secretly grateful for Mello's rigid self-control, because he thinks there's no way he'd be able to stop at the end of the hour.

When they lower him to the mattress, Matt catches a glimpse of Mello's smile, grinning as he fights for composure and whispers to Matt,

"He's touching me,"

and it comes with a mixture of amusement and surprise, and, sure enough, Matt can see that Light's hand is really on him, and he isn't sure whether to be aroused or jealous, or, for that matter, which of them to be jealous _of_—

He doesn't take his eyes off Light's hand touching Mello even as he continues kissing and biting the skin on Light's chest, and he can't help wondering to what extent Light really has control over any of this, because, really, the way he gives in to Mello and the hard ministrations of his hands and his mouth, it's almost undeniably colored with surrender.

And then Matt notices that Mello is looking at him, and that he's been looking at him for some time, and Mello knows his silence and his insecurity all too well, so it's with unexpected charm that Mello reaches suddenly for Matt's face with one extended finger and leans to kiss him over the slender form of Light's body.

"Come on," he says, "let's do it to him like you did it to me."

Matt feels himself grin despite himself, because, for all his intricate, careful thoughts, he quite simply likes when Mello kisses him, and sometimes he thinks he could forgive every vicious remark and every blow and every tantrum when suddenly again Mello's lips are on his.

And hasn't it always been this way?

…_.Mello! Mello…!!_

There are no words exchanged between them, but there is unspoken, tense arousal as they gaze at Light's face gazing back with unreadable attention, and then, almost hoping to see him break down again with innocence, Mello turns his gaze back to Light's abdomen and the slight angle of the perineum.

"You must taste very nice," he murmurs, voice low and predatory, "if he liked you as much as he did."

He bites softly on his lower lip as he kneels down, eyes piercing fire from behind his hair, and Matt is almost painfully hard behind the tight restraint of his trousers as he watches Mello move dangerously close to the hard member below. It really does look very nice, and he's almost about to ask Mello to let him have it, too when suddenly his friend stops—

"Go on, Matty," he whispers, "I know you wanna taste him."

Matt doesn't reply, but his expression is telling enough. Long fingers wrapped possessively around the member, Mello tongues his incisors as he motions for Matt to come closer. Matt does, and, eyes darting toward Mello and then back down at Light's sex in his hand, he kneels over softly, and then, very tentatively, he brings the member to his mouth.

Mello watches with strange desperation as Matt lingers there a momnent, and there's the soft inhalation of his breath quiet through his nose as he has at Light very slowly, gently, and his warm fingers, closing long and slender in angular joints around the elegant curve of the iliac crest.

And it's Matt, not Light, who moans inaudibly in hard restraint of pleasure when at last he withdraws, and Mello asks him if it was nice, and before Matt can reply that _yes, it really was very nice_, there comes Mello's tongue flicking wet against his lips, and then Mello is kissing him and Matt can feel himself frustratingly wet behind his fly—

His hand comes warm on Mello's hand on Light's member, and he watches Mello break away and then finally have at Light, and his lips are moist and hot when now and again they brush against Matt's fingers—

"He's a little wet, isn't he,"

Mello's voice comes hoarse when at last he pulls away, and Matt replies with a timid smile that, yeah, that's right, and he watches Mello's eyes dart toward Light's face and back, and he knows that despite whatever unreadable restraint they see there, they have his undeniable approval.

"I don't think he's ever been with two guys before,"

Mello snickers.

"I don't think he's ever been with _one_ guy before," Matt replies, "other than L."

Silence.

_L. _

They've spoken and thought of him all throughout, but this, for one, was the first deliberate reference to him by name, and for one very brief moment, it seems to Mello that Light's admirable composure and unreadable silence are just the slightest bit interrupted by a very minute gesture of emotion—

_No. Don't think about that. _

There is no affection here.

_L knows._

_To be continued..._


	36. Chapter 36

All the while, Light watches with silent reserve.

Oh, they have his attention; his eyes are on them, fixed and direct, glimmering wet and large with unspoken reluctance but unmistakable interest, and even while Mello and Matt talk to each other, it's really him they're talking to.

And when in the midst of their ministrations, Mello and Matt stop breathlessly to gaze at one another, and then, without a word, begin all at once to latch onto and devour each other, it's really him they're thinking of, and it's really him they plan to devour in the end.

Mello nearly topples to the floor from the strength of Matt's grasp when suddenly he seizes him, and he half fights and half kisses back, aggravated and annoyed and short of breath and ambivalent between the urge to punch Matt and to pin him down and screw him.

It's nice to have Light watch, isn't it, especially because Mello knows that a good boy like Light will neither acknowledge what they're doing nor dare to intervene, but he wants it, he wants it no less, and while he won't dare to remind them that they've neglected him just then, even a good boy like Light won't suppress his relief when at last their attention returns to his neglected anatomy.

Could it be carelessness then, innocence, could it be defeat that comes upon him when, with naked humility, for once he speaks,

"_Gentle_,"

Is all he asks, perhaps for once undone and feverish, defenseless, soft eyes liquid water under the fluid sway of his hair, and under the immaculate velvet of his skin he is brittle, fractured innocence and lost, and so genuinely, thoroughly affected—

_Please_ and _protect me_ and _don't hurt me_, he says none of these things, he couldn't, but just how great a lie would it be, Matt wonders, to tell himself that these are things Light is capable of thinking—

"Okay then," comes the wet vapor of his breath echoing hot against the skin at Light's waist, "we'll go gentle,"

And he motions for Mello to back up, because it's not very long at all before they give it to him, and neither of them will have an easy time holding back from giving it to him _very not gentle_.

He's watching.

He wants to see what they're doing to him, how they're touching him and what they tell each other while they're touching him, and Mello knows that he's not gonna tell them how nice it feels or how badly he wants them, but it's there, it's all there, real and unspoken in the resolute intensity in his eyes—

_Is this how he looked at L? Is this what he wanted from L?_

And did L give it to him, did he hurt and torment him and did he wait with maddening patience to see when at last Light would break down, when at last he would speak and show despair and, with raw frustration, beg, and did that moment ever actually come, or _did Light hold out forever and ever and_—

"Nnn…._nnhh!!_"

It breaks the silence, simple and pained, and Mello shakes his head with feigned disappointment as he motions for Matt to stop,

"Matty, Matty," he croons, "Light wants _gentle_,"

And the way Matt drew Light's thighs apart, and the way he pressed his fingers into him just then were really not very gentle.

But Mello snickers to himself quietly, because clearly this was something Matt had done unawares because, having done it to Mello so many times, he must not even have given it a second thought.

"I'm very sorry," Mello says with a wicked smile that, behind the expressionless silence of his gaze, likely irritates Light to no end, but Mello doesn't even look at him long enough to search for any trace of emotion.

He takes Matt's place between Light's thighs, and, in a moment of enamor, inhales quietly as he runs the long digits of his hands along the naked skin of his abdomen and his legs, and the yellow locks of his hair fall on Light's thighs as he kneels to lick at him, lips pressed against his skin and tongue prodding the tight opening,

"Is this okay?"

He asks, eyes peering at Light from behind his hair, and, swallowing quietly, Light nods, so Mello licks at him again,

"And was that okay?"

"Yes," Light's voice comes hoarse and broken, and he stares at Mello with focused attention and gasps when Mello does it again, and then it's an internal battle as Light struggles to remain silent, gaze trained on Mello as the younger boy has at him.

"You're spoiling him, Mello," Matt whispers, now walking toward Light and kneeling to kiss his temple, "L never told us he liked that."

"L didn't tell us everything,"

Mello replies, and then stops frozen in place when he realizes how far more heavily laden his words are with implication than he ever intended.

Silence.

No, there is far more here at play than either of them can know.

"I never asked L to do this," comes suddenly the reply, and it's the most Light has spoken in a long time.

It's meaningless, however, because Light never asked L to do any of it, and he didn't need to, nor did he need to tell him how much he really did like it, because L knew.

"You're not going to ask us, either,"

Mello says, eyes intense and feral, "are you," and the slender tips of his fingers sink hard into the flesh at Light's hips,

"and when it hurts too much, you're also not going to ask us to stop."

And, naturally, Light doesn't answer that, either, and he says nothing when Mello has at him again, so it's Matt who reminds Mello that

"I thought we're giving it to him gentle,"

But really, he's entirely fascinated by Mello and how he licks slowly at Light, and he wonders how long Mello can really keep up _gentle_.

"You wanna do it to him, too, don't you,"

Mello says, and, very slowly, he begins pulling away, and as he does so he kisses the slick inside of Light's thigh and also the tip of his member and his flat stomach, and, brushing at his mouth with the back of his hand, he begins climbing over Light's slender body and presses down on his chest with his hands as to coax him again to lie down, and the soft strands of his hair pour on either side of Light's face when he kisses him.

"I wanna do it to _you_,"

Matt replies, transfixed as he watches them kiss, but when he moves closer, he leans gently under Mello's body and carefully reaches with his hand for Light's member.

Matt is good with his hands, and, of the two of them, he is really far more gentle.

There's a strange chill running down his spine, then, when he hears Light crying when again Matt begins to lap at him, and the voice comes soft and muffled against Mello's lips, and it's somehow infinitely arousing, so, almost to himself, Matt whispers,

"Is this what you wanted?"

And then, pressing his fingers against the already wet opening, he takes the member in his mouth, and it's not until Light at last has gone undone and weary of crying that, very quietly, Matt withdraws and, licking at his lips, says to Mello,

"He's all yours, boss."

And, Moving back, Matt brings one hand to Mello's hip, strong and delicate, and with his other he helps Mello take Light's member and slowly guide it in, and he can't quite see from where he is whether the look in Light's eyes is one of arousal or despair or pleasure or panic, but he doesn't need to look at Mello's face to know that, behind all that yellow hair, his best mate is smiling carnivorously in triumph and absolute satisfaction.

_To be continued…_


	37. Chapter 37

While it goes without saying that Matt thinks Mello is pretty, it isn't this alone that made Matt like him the way he did.

Mello had a sort of enchanting, living air of magic and gold, danger and blood and sex and fire that was simultaneously overwhelming and very intriguing to Matt and, really, to almost everyone who knew him.

This is particularly notable now—now that the long strands of his hair pour shimmering down his naked shoulders and the slender angle of his back, smooth and heavy and golden in the dim light of the infrared lamp.

His legs are bent long and elegant on either side of Light's waist, his arms reaching back with quiet intensity, and the white angles of his canines glimmer vicious behind his red lips.

Oh, he's never before felt anything toward L other than innocent love and pure, unwavering admiration—but this—really, this was the first time ever in Mello's life that he went so far as to covet something L had.

He could see easily why L liked this boy so much.

Mello in many ways was toughened through life and largely unfazed by the various people he met – beautiful or hideous, dependable or false, violent or quiet or conniving – but of everyone he's known, Light was somehow the only other person he's met who was somehow as enchantingly wicked as he, himself.

He can feel it even now, even in the ongoing silence between them and even as Light's expression, despite it all, remains entirely unreadable behind the soft cascade of his hair.

Light doesn't complain. He doesn't say anything. But there is, quite intentionally and very much for their eyes to see, the slightest smile painted all across his lips, and he maintains his cool fantastically even as his long eyelashes come down over his eyes and the bony protrusions of his hips move as of their own accord against Mello.

"Come closer,"

he breathes, beckoning to Mello with his hands, and, interest piqued, the younger boy leans forth, hair sliding as he reaches with his arms around Light's neck and brings his mouth to his. He gasps almost in surprise at the sudden feel of Light's arms sliding around him, too, and, unused really to being so far seduced, he feels himself somehow melting, delirious, almost like finally he managed somehow to break through the specular surface of the mirror and have at last at himself.

How hard it must have been, he thinks, how hard for L to resist this living, breathing seduction—this luxurious, fine poison of a boy, who really wanted all along to kill him.

L is stronger than that, Mello knows, and Mello is stronger than that, too, but if not for the sharp focus in his mind, Mello knows that he, too, could easily fall, easily drown in the sheer delight of liquid poison, in Light's arms, in his mouth, in the wet vapor of his breath—

"More,"

He murmurs, words ghosting ethereal against the tremulous membranes of Light's lips, and slowly the slender digits of his hands curl around the hair at Light's neck and he just barely breathes before again he seizes his mouth, thighs sliding warm and slick on either side of his bony waist, and as just barely the two catch a glimpse of one another, they feel it, they can tell—

_They both know it; they both want it. _

What follows, then, is expression of raw arousal as both reach blindly for each other, wetly, clumsily and without direction or knowledge or aim and whispering only broken words and parts of words—

It's Light then, who, arms tight around Mello's back, draws him suddenly closer, raising his back up from the mattress to meet him, and he holds him hard in place, breath coming shallow and moist through his nose and voice desperate as he moans very softly into his mouth—

His voice alone sends electric waves of arousal through Mello's skin; his breath alone against his throat runs his blood alive with liquid fire, and the glistening tip of his sex hard and aching wet, insistent, moist with the pained frustration of neglect and running visibly with thin white rivulets down the length and onto Light's skin beneath—

Matt would tell him many times thereafter how delicious they looked, how enticing it was to watch Light fuck Mello, how very pretty Light's chest was, glistening slick with arousal and sweat when, carnivorously, Mello slowly ran his tongue along the naked skin and rigid protrusions of his nipples, and how, hard and dripping wet, Mello's sex looked really good enough to eat, and Matt breathed deeply and held his breath, and it was all he could do, he would tell him, to hold himself back from interrupting them to have a taste—

Of each of them

Of both of them.

Silenced perhaps by desperation, Mello breathes only whispers and thoughts as, delirious with the aftershock of restraint, he dismounts clumsily from Light's hips, thighs aching and tender almost from strain as, hot and dyspneic, he manages to turn himself just enough away from Light before falling forth, face down and red palms gripping the mattress as the wet locks of his hair scatter disheveled over him, and, before, hand reaching absently for his own betrayed, neglected member, Light can begin to wonder what and how and why, there comes Matt's soft voice from the other side of the room as, with quiet understanding, he answers what was never asked—

"That's an invitation,"

he says as slowly he now walks closer, approaching the bed and Mello's exhausted, sweat-slicked form, and he can't help grinning in appreciation as his gaze falls slowly on the naked figure in a way that he knows Mello can almost feel.

"He wants you,"

Matt says to Light, and he actually turns toward him just enough to meet his gaze from behind the soft scatter of his hair, but soon his attention turns again to Mello, and, fully smiling now, he brings his hand down to the narrow place where Mello's waist meets his back, and he runs the long tips of his fingers down the hot, still-scarred skin to his hips and then the subtle curve of his behind—

"He's saying," Matt croons, and now it's almost a whisper,

"he's saying _fuck me, Kira_,"

and, for a moment, Light's eyes glimmer with strange desperation almost like sorrow, and maybe it's because he's not Kira—

or maybe it's because _he's heard these very words before._

But, smiling behind long, red hair, Matt resumes trailing his long fingers along Mello's behind, until, unable now to hold back, he reaches between Mello's thighs and, beckoning them apart with an air almost of reprimand, he bites hard at his lip as he presses deliberately inward, deep, down to the knuckles, and gazing down with malevolent satisfaction as visibly Mello trembles and emits a stifled cry of masochistic relief, Matt whispers to Mello,

"Yeah, I wanna watch him give it to you like that, too."

And then, before Mello can moan in reply, there comes the naked sound of flesh echoing crisp against naked flesh and Mello's cry comes again muffled against the sheet beneath when, smiling, Matt slaps him again, and while he hasn't much to say but for the quiet gaze in his warm eyes, Light can understand that this is something Matt does _because it's something Mello wants_.

Several moments more pass on before, eyes still trained on Mello and fingers still deep inside him, Matt says to Light,

"You're hungry for him too,"

And then, pulling out at last, he turns around slowly, and, green eyes flickering as his gaze meets Light's, he begins to approach him, bending lower as gently his fingers close around Light's fingers around his hard member, and it's red and dripping wet with frustration, and as, drawing closer still, Matt brings it to his lips, he murmurs,

"You really do taste so nice,"

and he, himself, doesn't really know to which of them he's speaking.

He licks slowly at Light, eliciting strained sounds of tentative approval and failing restraint, and then again brings him into his mouth, sliding past his lips and inward against his tongue and the back of his throat, and, breathing quietly through his nose, at last he pulls out and licks softly at his lips, fingers still running against the slick length aching hard in his hand.

"Go on,"

he says, turning again to look at Mello, and it's okay that Light doesn't say anything, because he doesn't really need to say that, Kira or not, there is something about him now silently burning with aggravation, and, equal or not, there is something also about Mello and the way that, through neither words nor gaze nor sound, he calls almost desperately to him from his very core, that fills Light all anew with the unmistakable urge to conquer.

_To be continued…_


	38. Chapter 38

Mello wanted Light to take him from behind because Mello is a dirty, perverse little boy with strange fascination almost to feel himself subjugated.

Mello had wanted this of Matt many times, and, ever the loyal friend, Matt would be only ever too glad to oblige.

Rough and hard and sweaty and hot, they'd cling on to each other, wet and gasping and clawing and violent, because both of them liked _violent_, because the more violent they played, the more helpless and desperate and frustrated they'd get to see each other collapse in each other's arms.

But that's not how it goes with Light.

Mello wanted Light to take him from behind, but Light doesn't do it rough.

Far too well-mannered for that, Light leans gently over Mello's back, and, long arms enveloping softly around him, he urges him gently upward to his knees.

"Not like that,"

he whispers against Mello's ear, and, astonished and at a loss for words, Mello allows himself to be raised.

He gazes ahead oddly and then actually gasps in surprise when he feels Light's mouth against the skin just under and to the back of his ear, wet and proficient and so dangerously affectionate that Mello hears himself whisper,

"…but L was rough with me,"

almost as though he expected to somehow startle Light, but he doesn't: in an impressive display of focused attention, the older boy continues merely to kiss his neck even as he croons,

"Oh, was he?"

"Yes,"

Mello exhales hoarsely, shivers trailing all throughout him when suddenly there comes the hot sensation of digits firmly taking hold of his member, and, touching him with oddly strong gentleness, Light draws him closer, and against his back Mello can feel the velvety warmth of Light's slender body, from the rigid flatness of his chest to the bony angles of his narrow hips to his hard, hot member deep inside him;

"That's terrible,"

comes the reply, almost inaudible against the delicate folds of cartilage at Mello's ear, and, maddeningly incapacitated, Mello finds himself somehow helpless and mute as he means to reply that _no, he liked that L was rough with him_, but the words remain hopelessly lodged in his throat instead.

It's aggravating. Infuriating.

And so is the way that, attentive and careful, Light's long fingers brush the hair from Mello's neck so he can kiss him more, and the almost suspiciously undeniable talent in those long fingers as they move warmly along his member, softly, lovingly, in a way that renders Mello powerless and astounded in Light's arms.

_Don't give in, it's only seduction_,

Mello hears himself scream somewhere within the vast reaches of his mind, but while Light may, in fact, be merely a very fine, delicious poison, he is all comforting affection and luxurious warmth, and no matter how loud Mello screams within his mind, he is somehow curiously unable to produce a single word aloud.

And when he feels the soft lips pressing gingerly against the still-sore scratches on his shoulder, Mello realizes that, despite his talk of feigned compassion, Light must understand that _violent_ is something Mello asked for, and that he is hardly accustomed to gentleness like this.

But he can't help it all the while, and he fights uselessly against the overwhelming urge to surrender to the hands that hold and touch and caress him, because even as he knows that Light is manipulative and even as he knows that Light is seductive and even as he knows that Light is very sharp and that _he never loved anyone_, it's just so good_, so undeniably good_, and the more desperately Mello finds himself struggling to regain control, the more he realizes gradually the extent of L's strength in somehow remaining nevertheless admirably cerebral and actually having Light locked up.

This is all very entertaining to Matt, who knows all too well what Mello doesn't like and that what Mello doesn't like is losing control to someone slick and quiet and somehow one step ahead, and he is infinitely amused to see that even as he all but detests Light and the way he managed somehow to control him entirely with submissive gentleness, Mello is clearly subject now to his own accursed arousal, and he is helpless, unnervingly helpless in Light's arms.

How many people, Matt wonders, have suffered exactly this—this fully conscious, maddening helplessness in Light's arms—oh, _that's how he killed, isn't it_—quietly, softly, lovingly, and even as his ill-fated victims cried internally in forlorn despair, they knew already, didn't they, that they already are too far gone.

And, ever the loyal friend, Matt prepares to say something or save Mello or somehow intervene when suddenly he catches Light's soft brown eyes gazing at him warmly from behind Mello's shoulder, and, as if reading his mind, Light murmurs,

"How selfish of me,"

And, again, impressively composed, he continues quietly,

"But there is something you want, too—isn't there."

And, frozen in mid-thought, Matt finds himself suddenly perplexed and astonished, because, fact of the matter is, this was actually something that Light realized even before Matt did, himself.

Dumbfounded, Matt understands suddenly that yes, there really is something he wants, and that, really, all along, even as it was Mello whom Light was touching and even as, all along, it was Mello to whom Light was whispering, Matt, who was perpetually unused to attention turned to his own likes and not-likes, had all along wanted Light, himself.

"Tell me,"

comes again Light's gentle voice, forever pleasant and deceptively colored innocuous,

"was there anything he allowed to you?"

Silence.

Matt blinks. _My God_, he shivers despite himself, _it's almost like he knows_.

This was not a question delivered with intent to prompt response; it was almost confirmation, an acknowledgement of something present really in both their minds.

Matt feels his throat dry as he swallows, eyes trailing tensely down Light's face and then the soft curve of his naked shoulder to his long arm encircled loosely still around Mello sweetly aggravated in his embrace.

No words are exchanged between them, then, when, very slowly, Matt paces alongside the bed and finally climbs in behind Light.

There comes the soft clicking of clasping metal and the quiet rustling of cloth and then the gradual, gentle depression of the mattress as, silently, Matt draws closer to Light.

Matt says nothing, but his fingers tremble visibly around his nevertheless hard member, and, tremor pulsing all throughout, his other hand comes gently on the delicious flesh of Light's slender hip as he takes hold there and slowly guides himself inward.

"_Ahhhn…!_"

Matt exhales, undeniably desperate and pleasured despite himself, and Light is so beautiful, so precious, so warm, that it's almost like L somehow prepared Matt to do this just for the time that this moment would come.

Light doesn't need to say anything more, he doesn't need to speak or comment or turn his head or look back at Matt or ask, because Matt is already smitten, and it's with conscious, independent consent that he brings his arms around Mello and around Light and that he holds him close as he thrusts faster and whispers silent, desperate, incoherent things into the silken swing of Light's hair and kisses and bites and licks him, and, long after, breathless, exhausted and spent, Light has collapsed with remarkable grace on Mello's partly-conscious form, Matt continues still to move against Light with nervous, careful desire to be gentle, kind, to be considerate and warm.

Oh, it might have hurt, it must have hurt, it was _gentle_, wasn't it, that Light wanted, and was Matt gentle, did Matt remember to be gentle, did he lose himself, driven overly by his own pleasure just then perhaps—was it good—did he like it—was it okay—

Very slowly, he withdraws, clothes now wrinkled and damp as he backs gently away from Light's sweat-slicked body heaving softly over Mello, and, himself short of breath, he watches with childlike curiosity as the thin, white streams trickle wetly down the tender curve of Light's inner thigh.

Oh, he can almost imagine L smiling perversely to himself at such a sight, preparing clearly to devour the prey so deliberately defenseless before him, and Matt's hands tremble still as now he leans closer, fingers again grasping at the narrow, tremulous hips as he tongues gently at the liquid white—

And even through Light's quiet, meticulous reserve, Matt can feel him shiver involuntarily, helpless at last despite himself, and this is somehow infinitely fascinating to Matt, who therefore continues lapping at him, hands grasping more tightly and tongue flicking against the moist, tender flesh until there is nothing left and he has all but licked him dry—

And then, somehow oddly proud that he's managed to elicit from Light an actual gesture of unmistakable, involuntary surrender, Matt smiles to himself with juvenile triumph as he rises again over Light and then leans in to kiss him—

It's Light's voice that comes suddenly, and while he hasn't moved even so far as to turn his head, his tone comes very serious and clear—

"There isn't much time."

And this is what it takes to break the spell.

Alarms of unmistakable danger flash all at once in Mello's mind as, with one fast motion, he jumps wide awake from the bed and scoots about three feet back toward the wall, understanding quickly that something is very, very wrong—

_Oh, but they're done for, aren't they, it's just too late now._

Both Mello and Matt stare ahead with trepidation as, in a devastatingly predictable display of calculated elegance, there come at last the dreadful words—

"There is no other way. I'll have to kill you."


	39. Chapter 39

And then, as almost in mockery of predictable reassurance, there it is—real and crisp and bright, and, curiously enough, just as plain as any ordinary sheet of lined paper—

There is tension in the air, so much tension as, lips pressed together tightly, Mello stares directly at Light—

_What can we do. What can we do. How does he—_

And Light stares back, and nobody says a word as two sets of eyes fall on Light's long fingers wrapped elegantly around the writing instrument.

And then Matt understands.

It isn't real.

_It really is just an ordinary sheet of lined paper_.

She never was on their side—was she.

"They can't know that you left this place alive," Light whispers, "you understand now, don't you."

He doesn't need to clarify who _they_ are or how he knows that _they_ sent them. There really is much more at play here than either of them ever knew.

Yes. Very slowly—very slowly, they both begin to understand.

She was never on L's side, either.

They were actually _meant_ to die on this mission.

If they left the cell alive, the FBI would get them, too.

Mello understands now that the purpose of the note Light is writing is to mislead those who find it into thinking they were already done for.

That is, so they won't be tracked.

Had they the luxury of a choice, they might begin to ponder as to whether it is or isn't wise to trust Light now, or whether or not they should collaborate with him on a plan for all three of them to escape.

But, never failing to live up to his reputation as L's equal, Light continues to amaze them with sharp deductions.

"Don't worry about that,"

he continues, soft dark eyes gazing at them from behind stray wisps of hair, and God, _God_ he's so beautiful,

"they never expected that you'd go through with your mission."

Mello stares in fascination, and, through the fear and tension, he begins to feel the anger well within him.

"What—?!"

Soft dark eyes close, and there's just the smallest hint of a smile stretching across Light's mouth.

"You love L, don't you,"

He says softly, and, again without waiting for a reply, "you wouldn't have killed me because of that."

Devil.

Bastard.

Villain.

Mello's teeth clench together in absolute rage, and he isn't quite sure which desire burns more intense within him—

How badly he wants to know what exactly Light knows about him and his relation to L or how badly he wants to destroy Light for heartlessly using this to his own benefit.

But he keeps a tight rein on his temper as he fights desperately for composure, because they have to listen to Light now, _they have to_, or otherwise all three of them will—

Wait. Light didn't bring this up merely to be heartless. There's something more.

"They chose you guys for a reason. They expected you to forfeit. The only way out is to feign death. They expected you to up the dose in the anesthetic drip without adding the lethal injection."

Matt and Mello stare back astonished. Misora even asked them to up the drip on Light's IV as to make his death seem like an accident.

_Almost to suggest to them to feign his murder_.

Light watches Matt's green eyes dart toward the IV; the drip really is suspiciously slow.

…_but why? _

"We don't have much time,"

It comes again, and the boys watch Light's slender form rise fluid from the mattress, and, leaving the note behind, he turns to them.

"And that's what we're gonna do."

Mello understands. All three of them will use the IV to feign death. There will be no video footage of them escaping the cell because none of them will escape the cell.

The fake note Light prepared will lead investigators to believe he controlled their actions to overdose.

By the time they actually woke up, they'll be out of the cell and well into the emergency unit of a hospital, under patient confidentiality and out of cameras' reach.

"You first,"

Mello hisses, eyes narrowing, and he's glaring at Light, because he wants to see that Light will actually use the IV drip on himself.

"Very well,"

Comes the soft voice, calm and polite as ever as long eyelashes come quietly down over cool brown eyes,

"But first, we need to figure something else out. We haven't got much time—so we need the cameras to come back on soon. But not until after we've used the IV."

Two sets of eyes turn simultaneously to Matt.

Matt.

_Matty._

The guy really was good with his hands.

A lot can be said of Mello's best mate, but one thing Mello had always known and silently respected about Matt was his fascinating talent with machinery.

_To be continued…_


	40. Chapter 40

Even Light seems to watch Matt with genuine fascination as the younger boy works at rewiring the electrical controls in the cell. Soft hair falling featherlike over the still-moist skin at his forehead, Matt is quiet, tuned out to all the world but the fine wires in his palm, glistening colored plastic between the skilled, gloved digits of his hands.

"How much longer,"

Mello grunts with restless agitation, and, almost as expected, Matt replies with gentle patience that

"Only a few minutes more,"

and Mello knows that, despite it all, despite the tension and risk and trouble, despite it all there is after all almost definitely enjoyment in Matt's voice, an unmistakable contentment that he can't help because _the guy really does like doing this_.

"There,"

He says some time later, green eyes sparkling with interest as his long fingers test gently at a metal switch, and, blinking in thought, he turns to Mello in a way that would make even Light go jealous, and he smiles with infinite patience,

"I'm actually surprised at how they wired this,"

He says, rising now to his knees and beginning to scan the floor for pieces of his clothes,

"I would expect that in a cell like this, the electrical board would be a unit alongside similar ones in a larger cluster, but—"

"Matt, shut the hell up already,"

Mello cuts him off with an impatient growl, "can't you tell me about that later? The freaking audio would go on before—"

"How much time have we got?"

It's Light's soft voice now, calm but serious, and, turning both their heads, the boys gaze at him in mutual silence.

"About ten minutes,"

Matt replies with a note of submissive compliance, as if afraid that this might not be enough.

Light goes silent for several seconds more.

"We need to hurry, then," he says, "I don't know how long the anesthetic will take to work."

Matt goes last. He and Mello watch in silence as, elegant and fluid, Light maneuvers his long limbs back onto the bed and then, gazing at them from under his hair, asks them again to strap him in.

There's a haunting memory hovering very strange in Matt's thoughts as again he watches his long fingers at work, and they trembled, he sees them, they tremble with odd reserve, because, of course, this is just like when L taught him how to do this, and, as his eyes rise gradually to meet Light's, he finds himself wondering in the oddest of ways whether L had taught him to do this for this very reason.

_L_, the fastened binds rest long forgotten between the slender digits of Matt's hands as green eyes stare absently ahead, _L, do you know?_

And, trembling still, those slender digits take Mello's wrist with love, with the same focused gentleness that he rewired the controls at the electrical board, and, as the boys had been taught when they trained for this mission, he takes the needle to the anticubital fossa.

Mello's eyes dart to the needle in Matt's hands and then to his face and then back, and Mello is a tough guy, isn't he, Mello isn't afraid of things like needles and shackles and sterile sharps, and there's no fear in his eyes when he stares back at Matt staring back at him as he presses the needle in.

And Matt doesn't need to ask Mello whether he trusts him when, one hand still pressing the needle down, he reaches with the other toward the switch at the manual drip. Just a little turn. Just a little more. They taught them how to do this, too.

There's something racing strange throughout the brittle thoughts in his mind, something flowing uneasy with the oddest sort of terror when he can see at last Mello's eyes batting slow with lethargy, because, regardless of the number of times they practiced giving an intravenous injection, they had never done it with real anesthetic. He had never before felt this nagging concern that what if—

What if by some sort of mistake—

What if he did this wrong and, after this, Mello would never—

No, don't think about that. There isn't time. He has to do this right. _He has to_.

But Mello isn't an electrical switchboard and the way he sways back gradually against the hard wall behind as the long lashes of his eyes come down at last over the tired glow of his eyes is somehow very disconcerting to Matt—Matt, who nevertheless tries his best to act with courage, but who nevertheless feels just the oddest bout of pain that _he's going to wake up, right, after this they're both going to wake up—_

Think.

_Think_. He timed this. From the time he upped the dose and the time the anesthetic began to take effect, there seemed to pass a little under three minutes. He would do Light second and finally himself, conspicuously leaving the IV in his own arm as to alert the guards to the supposed "actions taken before death as dictated by Kira."

This is also a means for them to ascertain that they really could trust Light in this regard—that is, that he allowed Matt to give him the same IV that the two of them had taken.

Light goes quietly, cooperatively and without a sound or single gesture at all of defiance, silently and cleverly alert until at last his own gaze turns fatigued and once again he lies harmless before Matt, curiously defenseless in his arms.

And then Matt is alone. Alone and tense and oddly terrified; so terrified, in fact, that he thinks suddenly his own adrenaline will win over the anesthetic in the drip.

This is dangerous, he knows, because if something goes wrong and the guards don't come in in time, a dose like this running forgotten really could be lethal.

The needle isn't sterile, either.

But, really, there isn't time left to rethink any of this, and he hasn't any other choice.

And so, fingers trembling, Matt takes the needle to his own arm, watching it go in straight and steady as he settles down across from Mello where the wall meets the floor just a few feet away. Gazing at his friend for several seconds, he leans closer, one palm flat on the cold surface of the floor as he presses his mouth to Mello's, and then, leaning back, he turns his gaze again to the needle in his arm. He holds it in place until at last his fingers tingle numb, and then, tilting his head against the wall, he closes his eyes and waits.

XXX

Whirring sweeps.

And the rolling of etched rubber wheels across the scathed linoleum surface of the floor, and chatter, somewhere off in the distance, incoherent chatter that rises in volume and falls with the occasional opening and closing of doors, and sometimes it's women and sometimes it's men and how rude, how aggravatingly rude that whoever it is who's making all that racket isn't even trying to keep it down as they come deliberately closer to his bed, setting something down nearby with the ridiculously loud clash of plastic against wood, and then again the whirring sweep of something close, and it's a curtain, he realizes in a moment of revelation, it's the sliding sound of curtain rings drawing over the length of the hanging rail above.

And rain, somewhere out there it's raining, isn't it, it's raining very hard.

Mello's eyes come gradually open, squinting hard against the bright halogen light in the hospital room, and he isn't sure how long he's been awake or partly awake or partly asleep, nor does he remember what the hell is going on or where he is or how exactly he got there, but he's dully numb and seeing double in one eye as he watches the nurse walk off after placing what appears to be a tray of food next to his bed.

He turns his gaze toward the tray, staring at it quietly for several moments before beginning very slowly to gather his limbs up into a reclining stance.

He isn't hungry. Not at all.

His eyes dart sideways as he realizes the that chatter he hears is indecipherable—Japanese, no doubt—and he remembers slowly that he and Matt have flown to Japan.

They're still in Japan, then. In a hospital. This was Light's plan, that's right. Reaching for his face, he realizes that there's a long tube coming out of his nose, and, fingers still aching numb, he tugs softly at it to pull it out.

That's right. They were feigning suicide. Running his hand slowly through the long locks of his hair, he turns his gaze now to his abdomen, where the bony frame of his body lies just barely covered beneath the loose folds of a blue hospital gown, and he slides his legs over the side of the bed until he feels the floor cold under the bare palms of his feet.

Ow.

_Motherfucker._

What in the hell—?

Turning his gaze back down, he notices to his vast astonishment another long tube, this one running clear from right under his gown to a receptacle on the side of the bed.

A catheter.

Oh, bloody hell.

Matt. _Matt! _Where in the hell is Matt…?!

But before he can even begin panicking about how exactly to get this thing the hell out of his body, his eyes fall on something almost as interesting hanging off the end of the bed.

There's a clipboard attached there with several papers hanging loose, and he's very interested to read what it says about him there. His patient chart.

Sliding closer, he reaches with still tingling hands, taking the thing and bringing it closer and then beginning to turn it around in his hands.

Fucking hell, it's all in Japanese.

But at the top of the page there suddenly appear words in English that catch his eye, and he realizes that it's the false name on the ID he carried with him into the cell. His eyes dart in periodic saccades in their search through the page and those that follow, looking for words, any words in English that he could possibly pick up.

NPO.

NPO? What's that? Some medical procedure? The name of a drug, perhaps? Can't be. Undoubtedly he was given other meds, and he can only deduce that their names were written in Japanese, because there are no pharmaceutical names written anywhere else in English. Strange.

He keeps flipping through, until suddenly, all at once, he feels his body go frigid.

Can't be.

There, toward the bottom of the third page, written in English and clear as daylight is his name.

His real name.

Mihael Keehl.

What the hell. _What the hell…?! How….?! _

He stares ahead frozen, heart beating suddenly hard against the naked wall of his chest, mind racing through possibilities, until, astonished, he realizes,

_He really was, he really was Kira, Light really was Kira, he could, he could see their names, he could see their na—_

And he remembers suddenly that when first he removed Light's blindfold, the boy stared at him, quiet and intense, and then calmly had said,

_You're his heir then, he must really trust you._

He knew. He knew all along. He knew Mello's name and, more chilling still, he must have heard his name before, because in that moment, there was, Mello realizes now, a revelation of silent understanding.

The name that appears now on Mello's patient chart, they got it undoubtedly from the note Light left behind. It really wasn't a piece of the death note then, or he and Matt would really have died.

_Matt. Matt! Where in the freaking hell is Matt—!_

Light is Kira. Light really is Kira. But he didn't kill them. He could have killed them, but he didn't. But why? And where is he? And where the hell is Matt…?!

Panicked, Mello rises from the mattress with one quick stride, cringing suddenly in pain as the catheter rips out long forgotten from within him, and then, falling back onto the rail, he mutters an elaborate string of expletives as again he reaches clumsily for the curtain swept all around his bed.

And there he is.

Mello breathes a sigh of relief as his eyes fall on the sleeping form of his geeky best mate, passed out serenely with tubes coming out of his nose and out of God knows where else and seeming to all the world like the very embodiment of sleeping beauty.

Mello, of course, has no patience for this.

He leans closer, and, in a moment of sadistic agitation, he yanks hard at the catheter tube, remembering how bad it hurt for him just moments before.

Matt awakens with a tremendous start, staring up at Mello with disoriented bewilderment, and while Mello knows that certainly his friend has no idea where he is or what happened and that most likely he's still mostly numb and probably in actual need of that catheter tube, Mello really doesn't care.

"Matt—!

He whispers, eyes wide with panic, and he hardly gives the other boy time to recover before, long fingers reaching for his bony shoulders, he attempts to shake him into cognizance,

"Matt! Matt, what in the hell does that mean, NPO…?!"

Hardly even attempting to look back, Matt cringes in pain, eyes closing as he curls partly up toward the place where Mello yanked out the tube just moments before, and he's too confused and disoriented even to curse.

Mello isn't helping, what with the furious muttering and whispering about their names and about Light and danger and Kira, and _what's NPO, what the hell does that mean, NPO_, and, fascinatingly, there slowly rises Matt's arm and with a thin, pointed finger, he motions toward a large sign posted right behind Mello's bed, and, just barely conscious, he murmurs,

"What—you mean, like that?"

And, very slowly, hands still locked on Matt's shoulders peering naked from under the slide of his hospital gown, Mello turns his gaze toward the sign.

NPO.

There, in very big letters, right up behind his bed, there it is again.

NPO.

_Nil Per Os_.

It's in Latin, Matt tells him, and it means _nothing by mouth_.

Silence.

Time seems to have stopped for several moments before, suddenly, Mello's eyes go big.

The tray. There's a tray sitting right there by his bed. A tray with food. That the nurse had given him just moments ago.

Mello blinks.

Was the nurse Asian…?

All at once, he practically leaps away from the bed, grabbing at the chart hanging from the end rail. His fingers tremble as he reads through, and there it is again – NPO. And then, farther down—

_Mail Jeevas_.

Fucking Christ.

Mello yanks hard at Matt's wrist, all but lifting him entirely off the bed with one solid jerk, and, now fully awake with the maddening pulse of adrenaline, he runs toward the door, breath coming hard and choppy under the terrified whisper of mumbled words,

_Is it safe, is it safe, can we leave, is it safe, can we go—_

"Mello, what, what are—"

Matt is just barely awake, batting uselessly at the tube dangling still from the inside of his nose, until, flipping his head suddenly toward him, Mello stares with a mixture of aggravation of despair before tugging hard at it to pull it out.

"_We have to go, Matty, Matt, we have to get out of here, we have to leave, the FBI has—"_

He stops suddenly, ducking and holding his breath as a physician makes her way down the hall past the outside of their room.

"Now,"

Mello whispers, lips trembling against Matt's ear,

"_Let's go, now…!_"

His fingers shake as he nudges open the handle at the door, and, very quietly, he takes Matt by the arm, moving fast toward the letters glowing bright in English—

_EXIT_.

The stairwell.

They slide past the door and, gradually coming to, Matt follows along behind Mello as he trots down the steps, hospital gown light and flailing open at the back, until suddenly the boy freezes in place.

"_Listen…!_"

He breathes, and he brings his hand hard against Matt's mouth as they both listen, and their breath comes moist and terrified against the thin air in the stairwell, and there are footsteps, the unmistakable sound of footsteps climbing up, so, all at once, Mello spins around and, pulling Matt after him, he begins to run upward, not even trying to keep quiet this time.

He doesn't know how long they've been at it. He doesn't know how long they've been running, but soon there's a dead end, there's nowhere else to turn, there's just the door at the top of the stairs, and it's the door to the rooftop, and after that, there's nowhere to run—

It's raining, it's raining hard when, out of breath and out of sorts, Mello yanks Matt out the stairwell and onto the naked concrete surface of the hospital rooftop, and they're cornered against the edge, cornered when the footsteps grow ever louder and the door swings open at last, and there, there before them, it's her, her in the flesh, Naomi Misora staring directly at them from behind the pointed barrel of a gun.

Silence.

There is silence, silence as Mello and Matt stare forth at her, her dark hair flailing wet all around the expressionless gaze in her eyes, expressionless with bitterness, hard and dead inside ever since he died, ever since Light took Raye from her.

Hard and dead since, despite it all, L fell in love with Light, and, despite it all, fought tooth and nail so that the guy who murdered her fiancé could live.

The thin, almost transparent cotton edges of their hospital gowns flail soaking in the wind as, slowly, Matt and Mello raise their hands in a final moment of surrender, when there comes suddenly the quiet whirr somewhere in the distance of a helicopter moving close.

The sound grows louder, and with it the flowing gusts of air as wet drops scatter all around, whisked asunder by the air and spraying wet in their hair and their gowns and the naked expanse of their skin, and before the helicopter door even opens very far, she shoots, hard and fast and direct, and she hits, too, because before they see who it is who's come to take them, there comes the sudden motion of collapse, and they hear the desperate cry of pain, and it's L, she shot L, and it's him she was after all along, wasn't it.

"Stop."

Before Mello and Matt can fall to their knees in anguish, there comes the soft, elegant voice of reason, and there, standing far on the opposite end of the rooftop, there he is, it's him, it's Light.

Standing before them in the rain, he is equipped with nothing more than a pen and a book.

His thin black book—the Death Note.

"Shoot her,"

Light says civilly, and, strands of hair swaying fluid, he's staring ahead toward the helicopter, where, still alive, L is clutching the wall beside the door with one arm, the other dripping red with blood, and there's a gun in his hand, there really is a gun, and he says nothing, but he doesn't shoot.

Light stares back in silence, and his teeth clench down in the first ever display of rage that Matt and Mello have seen him pull,

"Shoot her! _Shoot, you idiot, shoot!_"

Hands trembling on her gun, Misora flips her gaze to Light, and then back to L, and she cocks the barrel—

"Shoot already!" Light yells, and, unable to bear the tension any longer, Mello hears himself scream,

"You're bloody Kira! You're holding the Death Note! Why can't you—"

But he stops mid-sentence.

_L._

_L, do you know?_

_L knows._

_L knows._

But, tragically, for all his unparalleled, precocious power of deduction, there's nevertheless one little thing that _L really doesn't know_.

Very slowly, Mello and Matt turn to stare at Light.

If Light killed her, Light_ would die_.

Light really wasn't Kira anymore. He knew their names because he was a—

Kira really was executed in May of 2005.

L, himself, was witness to that.

The boy who supposedly never loved anyone really was dead all along.

_Oh, hell_, Mello whispers, _oh, fucking, fucking hell…_

All at once, Mello leaps forth, running at Misora and toppling her to the ground. They wrestle hard for several moments before Matt joins him, and she manages to shoot him in the arm before at last they somehow extract the gun from within her grasp.

It's Matt who shoots her in the end, and he and Mello remain there, drenched in water and sweat and blood as they hover trembling over her on the rooftop, staring at Light and L stare each other down in silence as finally L understands that, for once, he really was very wrong about Light—

There was, it would appear, one person Light loved after all.

_To be continued - epilogue_


	41. Chapter 41

**Epilogue**

"I know you're there."

Nine in the evening.

In the barren attic of an orphanage somewhere in the south of England, L was gazing blankly ahead through the iridescent glow of a computer monitor.

July 20th, 2005.

Thin white fingers danced with gentle irritation around the porcelain handle of a small teacup, but he didn't bring it to his mouth.

Nothing was so unsettling to a man of reason as the prospect of something potentially unexplainable.

"Go on,"

He murmured calmly despite the fear, cold and genuine, welling at the base of his chest,

"I figured eventually you'd come."

There was no gust of wind, no ominous flicker of candlelight, but merely the gentle sound of footsteps, the black lacquer of shoes pacing softly across the wooden floor.

"Ryuzaki,"

Light said quietly, even though now he could see the long-coveted letters of his real name, floating clear and large in English just above him—

"This is blank,"

Came the reply, and as his white fingers flipped through the notebook lying open on the floor just inches from his feet, L did not bother even to turn around to look at the other boy.

"Yeah,"

Light said simply, and he stopped in place.

"This is good,"

Came L's toneless voice, and he continued flipping, mouth now pressed against the bent crook of his elbow resting just above his knee.

It's good because death gods prolong their own lives by taking other people's lives. There was no way to make sure Kira stopped killing even after he had died, because, really, he was still around. It wasn't possible to stop him now, and if he wrote people's names in the notebook, then, technically, he could go on living and killing forever.

"I'm not Kira,"

Light said softly, because, even before he died, he relinquished ownership of the Death Note he had, but that was not enough to absolve him of punishment.

"I know,"

L's voice was a subtle note softer now, but still he didn't turn around.

In the months before Light died, L really did believe he was no longer Kira. He had actually appealed against his execution and instead for his arrest.

The FBI didn't really know about death gods. Neither did the Japanese police.

Neither did Light's family.

"We'll tell them you're still alive, and you're under arrest,"

L murmured into the bent angle of his knee, "and that's really what we'll do."

Slender digits still fingering the hard edges of the book, L turned around at last.

"We'll make it look like a top secret issue," he said, now taking the cup to his lips, "like nobody's supposed to know that you're really alive, and we'll keep you in a cell."

Light was not happy about this.

"And what about my family,"

He said, voice hard and quiet with subdued anger. L's eyes rose up and to the left as he sipped his tea quietly.

"We'll tell them the same thing. And we'll let them meet with you now and again. That'll be their proof that you're still alive."

And L will keep his notebook, and that way Light would not be able to write new names in it, and that way eventually his own lifespan will run out.

Light's fingers clenched hard into fists and his teeth came down in rage, but, even though nobody else in the house could hear him, he didn't fly into a fit about how cruel it was of L to say such awful things with impeccable composure.

"You could get into a lot of trouble if the FBI ever found out."

Silence for several seconds more as L stared down into the now-cool liquid in his cup.

"That's right," he replied, putting the thing back on its saucer at last.

There was a knock then on the door.

Silence.

Slowly, L unfolded his long limbs and rose to his feet, placing the notebook to the side of the computer facing away.

"Come in," he called to the door, and, as it opened slowly, in paced a tall, thin teenager with shoulder-length blonde hair.

"What is it, Mello,"

L said quietly, pacing toward the door, and Light watched with distant curiosity as the boy's face lit up with the strangest glow of admiration,

"Hi," he said, not bothering in the least to hide his smile, "I thought maybe you wouldn't mind reading over my history paper."

"Mm," L said, fingertips nudging at his lower lip unawares, "let's have a look…"

And Light looked on as, taking the paper from the boy, L paced toward the window in silence, fingers still pressing absently against his mouth as he read.

The boy – whose name apparently wasn't what L called him – didn't leave the room, but rather settled down at L's computer, staring deliberately at the screen and reaching not for the Death Note that was hidden behind the case, but rather for L's forgotten cup of tea.

Hair falling softly over one bony shoulder, Mello lifted the cup, and the way he brought it closer to his lips and inhaled softly was enough, enough to make it all too clear to Light, who raised his eyebrows with curious surprise, that this was infatuation, this was real love—

"Yech,"

Mello curled his lip in disgust upon tasting it,

"You really do put too much sugar in your tea, this is more like some kind of….tea…syrup…"

"Mello should drink his own tea then," came the reply, quiet and unimpressed, from the other side of the room.

But both L and Light knew that Mello would go on drinking it anyway.

When finally it was over and both Mello and his history paper had left the room—and not without L's obligatory praise and Mello's subsequent shameless euphoria—L paced back toward what he hoped was left in his teacup.

Grumbling to himself in obvious dissatisfaction, L gazed into the upside-down empty hollow in his cup as he held it high between his thumb and forefinger.

"That's Mello," he mumbled to Light without turning around, "one of my heirs."

_This guy had heirs….?_

"Now you listen," L said, now pacing back toward Light, "if ever there was a danger of anyone finding out—"

He turned again to his computer, bending down to place his cup back on the floor and instead reaching for the notebook,

"I'll think of some way of letting you know. There should be some way that you and I could communicate, but that of course would be monitored – so if that ever happens, I'll have to send someone else to you."

L will keep Light's notebook.

Whoever he'll send to Light will have some way of coming in contact with it—like an inadvertent touch or by paging absently through its blank pages left supposedly forgotten on L's desk or maybe collecting the occasional sheet or two of scratch paper scattered embarrassingly together with an unpaid phone bill among the disorganized sheets of a report project.

XXX

The—

_The ride back from the emergency room—_

—blood—

Staining dark, dark, but somehow never showing from beneath so much white skin—

When later he recovers, investigative forces will turn again to him in despair, all questions about the note found at the scene—

_Overdose on anesthetic by deliberate intravenous injection to the cubital fossa_

—preceded not only by the names _Mihael Keehl_ and _Mail Jeevas_, but also _Light Yagami_—

—whose body, however, never was found—

—and all, all is silent—

—dust floating in the sunlight—

_I've missed you, I've missed you_

The vapor flow, breath of expiration, dreaming flicker of eyelids and vulnerable, fragile, injured, white, the lingering traces of obsession long forgotten, naked, tremulous, human, _heart-wrenchingly human—_

—there passes through the empty room an immaterial gust of silver which cuts through the heart and cracks open the air—

_I've missed you_

The satin black of eyes, clever against white skin, and, oh, what words could never say—

And he doesn't dare—

Light doesn't dare touch him.

Silence as through the dust floating in the sunlight they gaze at one another from across the room, silence as they hold hard to restraint that comes almost second nature to both, and Light—

Behind the hard reserve in the liquid shimmer of his eyes, Light is still a child, stubborn and naïve despite it all, and he finds—

L finds—

"Good morning. Light-kun."

It comes soft and airy but somehow laden with years of restrained despair and sorrow yet unspent—

Silence.

The only suitable counterpart for L and the only suitable rival to L—

And L finds that he—

"Good morning. Ryuzaki."

And Light doesn't cry, does he, but his eyes glisten nevertheless with the shattering combustion of words unspoken and ancient restraint—

L beckons to him like he would to any child, and, fists clenching and unclenching in hesitation, Light does not move, the slow flutter of his long eyelashes the only sign that he's there at all—

_I've missed you, I've missed—_

In the end, he was innocent, with neither malice in his heart nor any recollection of being Kira—

And only—

Only—

—years spent in patience bound and shackled and blinded, with nothing really holding him in the cell but his own desire to amend—

How long has it been? How long since they—

"Light-kun,"

L beckons to him again, and this time, despite his broken arm, he shifts quietly in bed in attempt to sit up, and Light watches with mute reluctance as then L murmurs,

"Ah; It hurts…"

There's a tremor coursing electric through Light's skin, and maybe his breath hitches then when at last he joins the older boy, and, leaning at his side, he says with quiet reserve,

"Don't move it. Ryuzaki."

L's eyes roll toward him with a mixture of surprise and interest, and, before he can think, L replies,

"I'm sorry."

In the sunlight, his black eyes seem just the slightest bit lined with gray—

—and Light seems just the slightest bit—

—human.

It was tragic, wasn't it, for such a young boy with so much self-restraint and determination, and L finds that he—

—seductive, beautiful, clever, political, but also, there was genuine melancholy there, genuine agony and also there was love—

—and it's genuine despair that has Light collapse at last into L's arms, at last forlorn and vulnerable and brittle, and this is real, this really is real, and like he would to any child, L gathers him in and holds him quietly until he's subdued—

_It hasn't been easy for Light._

Beneath _enchanting _and beneath _political_ and beneath _cunning_, at last he is human, _he has never been so human—_

Until the day he died, Light has never cried so openly—

So—

—wetly into the crook of L's neck, Light is visibly broken at last, and, quiet and composed, L closes his eyes, white fingers of his good hand running slowly through the feather-soft strands of Light's brown hair, and _I've missed you, I've missed you—_

"Here,"

comes L's quiet voice as he pulls Light's weightless form onto the bed, and, looking down reluctantly at the bony arm wrapped all around his waist, Light complies in silence, and L gazes into his face and turns his chin toward him with a gentle finger—

—and Light's gaze alternates between L's finger and his eyes and then his finger again, and he says nothing, but he swallows quietly, and L brushes the hair from his eyes before leaning in very slowly to kiss him—

—hot vapor, moisture and breath and whispers inaudible against wet skin, _I've missed you_, and Light was only nineteen years old when he died—

—and he clings curiously to L, wet lips pressed motionless against wet lips,

"Ryuzaki, I—"

_love you_

And L finds—

_I've missed—_

—that he's wanted to believe that ever since a long-forgotten match of tennis—

"_Shh…_"

—and the slender body surrenders weightless in his arms as he holds on with white, wiry limbs, and he'll never release him again, because it would be very lonely, very lonely if ever again he let him go, so, subdued at last, Light rests his head on the bony angle of L's white shoulder as the older boy draws the blanket over him, and, dust floating in the sunlight, all is still all throughout—

"I've missed you. Lighto-kun."

XXX

Matt's head is resting on the smooth curve of Mello's thigh, hair cascading softly on the taut black leather, fingers absently tracing the bony condyles at the knee.

"Does it hurt?"

Mello asks quietly, and his voice is hard and blunt as always, but—and perhaps only for Matt to know—laced forever with invisible undertones of love.

"Yeah," Matt replies, "yeah, it hurts."

He suffered a bullet to the arm for L, and, romantic notions aside, it hurt, it bloody well hurt.

FBI or not, they were treated at the same hospital that day, both L and Matt, but after that they were free, they were home free.

And there, safely back in England, is Mello, doing work for L as always.

Hard and quiet as always.

Matt bites down on his lip slowly, eyes blinking as the absent stare in his eyes traces silhouettes of the furniture from across the room—the sofa, the coffee table, then the TV—

In an eerily unexpected display of attention, there comes then the feathery slide of hair against his cheek, then the wetness of lips moving in tones too loud for so tranquil a moment,

"I'm almost finished,"

Mello says,

"I've been writing this for a long time, haven't I."

Matt doesn't turn to look. Eyes mild and half closed, he appears deep in thought as he follows still the outline of the furniture,

"It's been a while since you screwed me on the stove top," Mello continues, and Matt can feel the soft movement of lips as his mouth stretches into a smile.

"I don't think I can do that right now,"

comes at last the reply, because Matt is injured, his arm is in a cast and, really, light though his friend may be, Matt doesn't want to try lifting him up and holding him in kinky positions over the counter exactly right then.

"Yeah, okay,"

Mello says after a silence, and Matt feels the long, yellow strands sweep away as then Mello straightens his back before returning again to work.

"Y'want anything?" he adds several minutes later, just barely daring to glance down at the boy in his lap, and, simply, Matt replies,

"No."

Mello nods quietly to himself, sinking back into gradual focus before again his fingers begin typing at the keyboard.

"So he's probably gonna make you his heir, isn't he."

Long fingers stop typing.

"Hmm?"

"L."

Mello's eyes dart downward.

"What made you say that all of a sudden?"

Matt sighs with feigned lightness of heart. "Kira thought so."

Mello continues staring down at Matt, and he doesn't need to say anything about how badly he wants to be L's successor or how the notion just now made his pulse skip a beat, because there's no point and Matt already knows.

_L really is amazing, isn't he._

Blue eyes roll back to face the monitor screen, and, without a word, Mello resumes typing again.

_And Kira, he's really amazing, too._

"He wasn't really Kira," Mello says eventually, but neither of them is really thinking about that right then.

And really, Mello isn't thinking about his project anymore, either; his mind wanders as absently the long digits of his hand reach across the keyboard for a small twig they had sitting around on the desk since last Christmas.

Matt doesn't need to look up at Mello before knowingly he murmurs,

"Put that down before you hurt yourself,"

and his voice rings with a gentle mixture of concern and cheeky ridicule.

Mello turns his head downward and remains silent for several moments before the smile in his mind surfaces at last, and he bends again over Matt again, and, with surprising gentleness, takes hold of the injured limb.

"I bet it itches,"

he says, and before Matt can pull away, his friend slides the twig under the edge of the cast.

Matt's first impulse is to shake himself loose, but, unexpectedly, it actually feels kind of nice, so, looking up warily, he allows Mello to go on.

"Just…" he murmurs, "just don't get it stuck this time, yeah, mate?"

Blue eyes gaze at Matt from behind too-long bangs, and, with renewed intensity, Mello nods in silence.

Yeah, L sure is amazing.

Kira's pretty amazing, too.

Mello pulls the twig gently out from under the cast.

"I'm sorry, Matt. I got you shot."

The younger boy watches as Mello returns to his computer—to save the document and turn it off at last.

"Maybe…" Mello thinks aloud, fingers trailing at the edge of Matt's hair as he leans down to kiss him,

"…maybe we can play Mario Golf."

Matt actually smiles.

"You don't like Mario Golf."

Mello smiles back, eyelashes flickering against the bridge of Matt's nose as he draws closer, and his lips are warm when then they kiss,

"Sucks for me then," he laughs quietly, "don't it."

_End. _

XXX

_Intermediate scene between L and Light inspired by the song Here in your Arms by Hellogoodbye_

_Like it or not, Matty, this story remains dedicated to you. I'd be lying to myself if somehow I pretended I didn't write all along with you in mind. It hasn't been easy, has it, but I always did love you. _

_- Mello_


End file.
